The man known as Pierre Elliott Trudeau was born October 18, 1919, in Montreal, Quebec (Pierre 1). Trudeau’s father was a wealthy Quebecois and his mother was of Scottish descent. Trudeau’s passion for intellect and world travel was formed during his early years. His father’s wealth enabled the family to travel the world extensively, and his mother was bilingual speaking both French and English to her children. These travels developed in the young Trudeau what would become “an unquenchable taste for faraway places and adventure” (O’Malley 2).
Trudeau was considered flamboyant and enthusiastic. Attractive, intelligent and inquisitive, Trudeau studied law at the University of Montreal. From there he earned his Master’s Degree at Harvard in Political Economy. The future prime minister then did post-graduate studies at the Ecole des Science Politiques (School of Political Science) in Paris and also put in a year at the London School of Economics. After graduating with honors, Trudeau was called to the bar of Quebec in 1944 (Alward 1). Trudeau’s father died when Pierre was still in his teenage years, but his mother lived until 1973 (Alward 1).
Pierre Trudeau did not serve in WWII, and his opposition to the conscription of soldiers would come back to haunt him in future political elections. Trudeau toured Europe extensively during the late 1940s and his travels also took him to the turbulent post-war areas of Eastern Europe, and the Middle and Far East. After serving the Quebec Bar in the 1940s, Trudeau came onto the Canadian social and political scene when he supported the union in 1949, during the famous Asbestos Strike (Alward 1). Trudeau would later edit a book on the strike. During 1950-1951, Trudeau served as Advisor to the Privy Council (Pierre 1). Always a man of ideas, in 1950 Trudeau co-founded and became director of the Cite Libre, a journal of ideas whose articles were supplied by Trudeau a...