11 - Liberalism Ascendant, 1945–1984

Summary

This chapter chronicles Canada’s emergence as a middle power on the global stage and as a champion of peacekeeping in the Cold War environment. Canadians meanwhile embraced a range of human rights legislation, engaged in an unprecedented outpouring of cultural expression; adopted a series of welfare state measures culminating in Medicare (1968); legislated bilingualism (1969) to accommodate the “Quiet Revolution” in Quebec; and implemented a policy of multiculturalism (1971) to integrate the influx of immigrants. The postwar liberal consensus began to fall apart with the 1973 OPEC oil crisis, which blunted economic growth. The Parti Québécois won the 1976 Quebec election, promising to hold a referendum on independence; Indigenous peoples vigorously challenged centuries of settler oppression; corporate agendas began to trump all other concerns; oil-rich Alberta mounted vigorous opposition to the 1980 National Energy Policy; and environmental degradation called into question the very survival of life on Earth. With the support of Quebec, Liberal governments remained in office federally for most of this period and Pierre Elliott Trudeau cemented his place in history in 1982 by “pratriating” the Constitution, which included a popular Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Quebec refused to sign the Constitution Act leading to a decade of fruitless constitutional negotiations.