The politician and the civil servant: Pierre Trudeau, Marcel Cadieux, and the Department of External Affairs, 1968–1970

Abstract

This article uses the experience of Marcel Cadieux, the Canadian under-secretary of state for external affairs at the time, as a lens through which to understand the adaptation of the Department of External Affairs to the government of Pierre Trudeau during its first year-and-a-half in power. Drawing on Cadieux’s private papers, especially his diary, and other archival sources, it explores the prime minister’s attitude toward senior civil servants, his personality, and the review of national defence policy undertaken by the bureaucracy at his request. It concludes that the difference between Pierre Trudeau and Marcel Cadieux was essentially that between the brilliant politician who sought to redefine government and the consummately professional civil servant who believed in his department’s traditional role.