# Pierre Trudeau **Pierre Elliott Trudeau** (1919–2000) was the dominant Canadian Liberal of the postwar era, prime minister from 1968 to 1984 with one brief interruption, and the figure modern Canadian conservatism most often defines itself against. A Quebec intellectual who opposed Quebec separatism, he met the [[October Crisis]] of 1970 by invoking the War Measures Act — the peacetime emergency-power precedent the [[Freedom Convoy]] era would later echo. He patriated the Constitution in 1982 with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, made multiculturalism official policy, and imposed the National Energy Program, which seeded a lasting [[Western Alienation]] in the oil-producing Prairies. For the [[Reform Party of Canada]] tradition and its heirs in the [[Conservative Party of Canada]], Trudeau-era centralizing federalism is the founding grievance — and the resentment carried over, by name, to his son [[Justin Trudeau]]. He governed as a leader of the [[Liberal Party of Canada]] and anchors the federal-bargain arc of the [[Canadian History Hub]]. > [!note] Stub > Phase 1 spine stub. Expand: the Charter and patriation fight, the National Energy Program and Alberta, the 1980 Quebec referendum intervention, "Trudeaumania."