God and Mammon

I happened to be in Montreal on this day in 2000 when Pierre Trudeau’s funeral service was held. Notre-Dame Basilica was packed with mourners so I stood outside in Place d’Armes, one among the many hundreds listening to the service on loudspeakers and saying our sad farewells.
I was struck at the time by how the very architecture of the surroundings spoke to the always frosty relationship between the former prime minister and the business community. The soaring spires of the Basilica, erected in 1830, dominated one side of the square. On the opposite side stood the head office of Bank of Montreal, built in 1847, with its six sturdy Corinthian columns and stately dome.
For all the political success and personal charisma of Trudeau, the one connection that he never consummated was with business. He and the business community stood apart, just as did the bank and the Basilica, Mammon and God, resolute and unmoving, ever wary and watchful of each other.
Trudeau’s father had been in business but sold his company. As a result, Pierre Trudeau grew up with inherited wealth. There was little need for him to work. Instead, he travelled, taught, took on causes, and wrote. I heard many corporate executives hold his past against him, as if he could have changed his heritage even if he’d sought to, when they disparagingly said, “He never met a payroll.”
Nor did Trudeau have close friends or advisors from business. He embraced people in the arts, academia, labour, and politics but had little concern for commerce beyond what he’d learned at the London School of Economics from Harold Laski, the Marxist.
That studied indifference had serious policy implications. While there may have been no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation, there certainly were intrusions in the boardrooms. I’m no historian, but the government of Pierre Trudeau must have been among the most interventionist in Canada’s annals.
Throughout Trudeau’s regime until he stepped down in 1984, business and Ottawa were at such loggerheads that executives would grouse and wonder what Ottawa could possibly be thinking. For their part, when business did come calling, civil servants and cabinet ministers alike would heave a sigh and say, “What do they want now?”
Some of the blame must fall on business leaders themselves because too few of them run for office. Of course, the promise of strong, solitary leadership was what drew Canadians to Pierre in the first place.
That was why in 1968 I went to see him campaigning in Toronto’s west end with my son, Mark, not yet three years old, perched on my shoulders amid the teeming outdoor crowd. Pierre’s son, Justin, is not half the man his father was, nor does he have any closer connection with business. But, love Pierre or hate him, at least we always knew where he stood when he was in our midst.