# October Crisis The **October Crisis** of 1970 was the peak of violent Quebec separatism, when cells of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped British trade commissioner James Cross and Quebec labour minister Pierre Laporte — the latter found murdered days later. Prime Minister [[Pierre Trudeau]] responded by invoking the War Measures Act, suspending civil liberties and deploying the military onto Canadian streets in peacetime; asked how far he would go, he gave the famous reply, "Just watch me." The crisis is the historical hinge of the [[Quebec Sovereignty Movement]]: it discredited the violent revolutionary path and channeled separatist energy into the electoral route that produced the Parti Québécois and the referendums of 1980 and 1995. It is also the precedent most often cited when Canadians debate emergency powers — the long shadow that reached the [[Freedom Convoy]] era's Emergencies Act fight. It sits in the Quebec-question arc of the [[Canadian History Hub]]. > [!note] Stub > Phase 1 spine stub. Expand: the FLQ and its manifesto, the Cross and Laporte kidnappings, the War Measures Act invocation and mass arrests, the long debate over Trudeau's response.