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October Crisis Essay

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The outbreak of the ‘October Crisis’ began on October 5th, 1970 when kidnappings of two diplomats were implemented by the notorious Front de libération du Québec (FLQ). This led to the invocation of the War Measures Act (WMA) by Prime Minister (PM) Pierre Trudeau on October 16th, 1970. It marked the first time in Canadian history the WMA was enacted during peacetime and put Trudeau in a unique position. This man who had previously campaigned for the entrenchment of civil rights within Canada’s constitution, had now passed legislation to temporarily remove them. There has been wide debate conducted by many from the time of the crisis up to today discussing was the enactment of the WMA a justified means of dealing with the terror raised by the …show more content…

The broadcasted manifesto demonstrated the frustrations of the working class Quebecois after experiencing years of exploitation by industry, the hampering of Quebec’s French roots, and general distaste for the capitalist nature which governed both its business and politics. The kidnapping of James Cook and Pierre Laporte signified a change which struck the fear of revolution into the eyes of the government. This was demonstrated through the words of Prime Minister Trudeau when stating that the threat the FLQ poses is not just to the people of Montreal, but also to the social order and the democratic state. It was suggested that Quebec’s law enforcement alone could not handle the terror reign that was upon them and had made requests to be provided with powers that meet this state of emergency. Hence passing the WMA would provide more than sufficient control. The Liberal government further justified their cause by claiming a security intelligence failure which led to a lack of preparation for the FLQ bombardment and so extreme measures had to be legislated to deal with the threat. With this knowledge, it becomes understandable why PM Trudeau took the most extreme measures when dealing with a terror movement that was the first of its kind in

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