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Under Pierre Elliott Trudeau, new Prime Minister of Canada in 1968, relations between the governments of Canada and Quebec become more strained
Pierre Elliott Trudeau

Pierre Elliot-Trudeau (1919-2000)

After completing his studies and spending time travelling around the world, Pierre Elliott Trudeau became a civil servant of the Privy Council in Ottawa in 1949, followed by joint editor of the magazine Cité libre, to which he was a contributing founder and then professor at the Faculty of Law at Université de Montréal in 1960. Along with his friends Jean Marchand and Gérard Pelletier, Trudeau became a Liberal Party candidate in the elections of 1965 and won. As Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada since 1967, Trudeau disapproved of Pearson's conciliating attitude towards Quebec. As chief representative of the federal government during the federal-provincial conference of 1968, he made sure that Premier Daniel Johnson returned home to Quebec without having made significant gains. During this conference, Trudeau garnered a considerable amount of good feeling from English Canada, which allowed him to become leader of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister a few months later.

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