PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU’S GREAT BETRAYAL Book Review

PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU’S GREAT BETRAYAL

By: C. Gwendolyn Landolt, LLB and Patrick Redmond, PhD
Published by The Interim Publishing Company, 2017, 217 pages

http://www.realwomenofcanada.ca/book-review-pierre-elliott-trudeaus-great-betrayal-reality/?fbclid=IwAR0F5rOYqb7X5DXugrgiGt2H6NU2kz1CevSoO0fybskL7tr3OYqGV5X8mhk

Cost: $20.00 paperback.

REALity  Volume XXXVI Issue No. 9 September 2017
Book Review

For those who have championed the legal rights of unborn children in Canada, this book is a powerful record of their valiant attempts to include pro-life amendments to diminish the harm in Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s Omnibus bill in 1969, and his flawed Charter, when repatriated to Canada in 1982.

Appropriately titled Trudeau’s betrayal, the book is essential reading for the army of new recruits to the pro-life pro-family movements in Canada, and around the world. Its 240 endnotes, extensive sources, bibliography, references to publications and websites, and comprehensive index, open the door onto a world rich in heretofore hidden information. Excerpts from UN declarations, Church documents and parliamentary debates help clarify the issues at hand.

Charter Myths Shattered

The book shatters popular Charter mythology with facts. Predictions that exclusion of the unborn in the Charter would not lead to abortion on demand can be viewed side by side with warnings to the contrary from pro-life Canadians. Key quotations from Prime Minister Trudeau, Justice Minister Jean Chretien, the Ministry of Justice, Members of Parliament, legal advisors, medical associations and human rights advocates clearly reveal the battle fought to ride the wave of change against Judeo-Christian traditions. Pre-charter times were inclusive of the unborn, the family, property rights and the supremacy of God. The book does not spare deserved criticism of weak religious leadership, juxtaposed with strong religious statements from well-informed clergy.

Behind the Media Storyline

In contrast to a character worthy of media adulation, Trudeau’s flawed humanity is revealed in choice quotations: “If I found in my own ranks that a certain number of guys wanted to cut my throat I’d make sure I cut their throats first.” “…the shameful incompetence of the average Liberal MP from Quebec was a welcome asset to a government that needed no more than a herd of performing donkeys to file in when the division bell rang.” “The party of the people -socialism, communism – will eventually come out the winner.”

The book reveals how the Liberal government deceived powerful Canadians who didn’t understand that the Charter would transfer power from Parliament to the courts. However, it did not fool Canadians informed by the pro-life network. Thinking themselves progressive, Liberals ignored scientific progress while Campaign Life and Toronto Right to Life built their defense of the unborn on the latest scientific facts.

Previously unpublished correspondence between pro-life advocates and elected officials in Canada and the United Kingdom, and clergy representing various religious bodies, uncovers the behind-the-scenes action, with names fearlessly revealed. A bright light is shone on those in favour and those opposed.

Pro-life pioneer Gwendolyn Landolt, warned: “abortion on demand has been locked into the proposed new Charter of Rights,” but few would listen. She also predicted the loss of special recognition for women in employment, equality with men regardless of physical difference leading to combat duty, loss of parental rights over minors, homosexual marriage and adoption, loss of property rights, and more. She wrote in 1981 “Under the Charter of Rights, Canada officially becomes a secular state with government being all powerful and the source of all ‘justice’ without resorting to a Higher Being.”

Court Supremacy Over Elected Parliament

Improper use of evidence in the Morgentaler case is exposed. The Cardinal Carter reversal on the Charter is parsed. Feminist taxpayer funded complicity is noted. We are reminded of Trudeau’s creation of a centralized dictatorial Prime Minister’s Office and 114 agencies and commissions working independently of Parliament. The truth about Prime Minister Mulroney’s Conservative Bill C-43 on abortion is put on record. Tabled are REAL Women of Canada’s court interventions for the unborn every time Court Challenge Program funded activists tried to bypass Parliament via the courts.

The authors opine that Trudeau and Chief Justice Bora Laskin “thought MPs were impressionable, uninformed and ignorant, and the elite, knowledgeable judges were better able to make decisions on human rights.” They call the pro-life battle with Trudeau a deadly game of poker and claim that his imposition of constitutional changes was carried out through a bloodless revolution. They point out that many capable legal minds did not foresee that the Supreme Court, given supremacy over Parliament, “could and would wield the Charter as a bludgeon to eliminate traditional values in Canada by declaring some laws as being unconstitutional, not only in regard to abortion, but also on the issues of physician-assisted suicide, prostitution, traditional marriage, medical marijuana and drug-injection sites, religious rights, etc., to name a few of the values tossed aside by the Court in subsequent years.”

Did you know?

Charter and Constitution aficionados will appreciate newly revealed factoids in this judicial and Parliamentary drama over life and death:   What is the link between the constitutional debate and the Rebellion of 1838 in Upper and Lower Canada? Who noted that an unborn child would have representation before the courts by the Official Guardian were his inheritance rights in question, whereas the unborn child before an abortion committee has no personal or legal representation? Which MPs referred to abortionists appearing before a House of Commons committee promoting legalized abortion as “distinguished lawbreakers” and “the biggest gathering of criminal abortionists ever held in Canada”? Which Jesuit accused Trudeau’s Omnibus bill of renewing political colonialism in Canada and why? Who quoted Dante in the House of Commons during an abortion debate: “the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintained their neutrality?” Which Parliamentary report did Trudeau “throw immediately into the trash” and why? Which anglophone provincial premier stated that he preferred Rene Levesque’s vision of Canada to Trudeau’s? Which MP refused to remain seated while Campaign Life defended the unborn before a parliamentary committee on the constitution and threatened to sue if anyone revealed his behaviour? How many provinces took the federal government to court over Trudeau’s attempt to unilaterally repatriate the Constitution? Which former Supreme Court Justice observed that special interest groups weighed in on what should go into the 1982 constitution but “Canadians were never consulted on the basic question of whether they wanted a charter or not.”? Which MP said: “It’s not a constitution; it’s a prostitution, an 11^th hour, 55^th minute mishmash thrown together by the premiers…” and cited three objections: “no protection for the unborn, no protection for Anglo-Quebecers, and no protection for property rights.” Which MPs and Senators introduced amendments, all defeated, giving the unborn child a right to life equal to the rights of those who are born? Only the keen minds of our authors could pack so much information into this must-read page turner.

This is a sad tale of enthusiasts guilty of betrayal, conniving revolutionists, timid fence-sitters, pro-lifers abandoning their courage. It is also the portrait of the on-going saga involving the highest levels of politics and religion. It is the story of pro-lifers valiantly following a rightly formed conscience to the end in their defense of the unborn and the incomparable Judeo-Christian truly just society.

Canadians were and still are deceived about the Charter but the book is full of confidence for the future, listing the many organizations and individuals who selflessly, and without state funding, continue to defend the unborn, the traditional family and the way of life which results when men and women build a society that acknowledges moral order.

Picture not part of the book