Pierre Elliot Trudeau
...orations in Quebec were English based and the Quebec government wanted French to be the only language spoken in the province. Trudeau, at first, tried to settle the problem by making Canada bilingual. He passed the Official Languages Act. The problem was that immigrants coming to Quebec learned English instead of French and English were used most in the province. The Quebec government wanted the immigrants to learn French. The official languages act did not settle the matter but it was supposed to make Canada united as a country. He accomplished this because today, Canada is bilingual even though the Quebec government still insists for French in being the only language spoken in Quebec. Trudeau gave us a united country because he worked to give us a better country. Trudeau had hard times keeping Canada united. The hardest time was during the 1960s-1970s because Quebec was pushing for separation because they believed that separation was best for Quebec. In fact, studies have shown that if Quebec does separate, the citizens of Quebec will suffer and Quebec would most likely be assimilated by the United States. Trudeau tried to keep Canada united mostly because he was opposed to separatism and because he wanted to help Canada keep the image that they were a bilingual and multicultural country. Even though the Official Languages Act was criticized, it was never redrawn and by that fact, Trudeau did accomplish his desire to keep Canada united. Even though Canada was united, they still had to rely on the British government to make decisions for them whenever the Canadian government could not handle the problem. He first decided to patriate the British North American Act so Canada could be free of the British Empire. He decided to put together a sort of constitution that would give Canada its own ruling power and rights as a country. He first started in the late 1970s when he, in consultation with his advisors, the Queen, and the governor general, decided to restrict the Queen’s duties and give more of those duties to the governor general. The Commonwealth, throughout this period a forum for contacts between the two countries, may be thought of also as a forum for disagreement. Between 1968 and 1971 Trudeau tried to get a constitutional package. At this time Trudeau had many other problems to attend to. He never quite forgot that lurking in the background there was an unfinished item of business – the constitution. The provinces tried to ensure that Trudeau would not proceed with patriation. Trudeau's own desire for a comprehensive deal, one that would include a charter of rights, and his search for a federal-provincial consensus, gave comfort to the assumption t...