What if Pierre Trudeau lost the 1968 liberal leadership contest?

Oh, dear.

The Charter would never have come into law and the Bill of Rights would remain prominent. The Bill has more room for interpretation, so we would see a lot more challenges on rights in court that would end with decisions with results similar to OTL.

Immigration reform would be delayed until the next time a Liberal is elected.

Quebec has a far larger chance of becoming independent. Even IOTL, with the calling of martial law under Trudeau, Quebec came close to independence.
 
Let's say Robert Winters wins. In all likelihood he goes on to lose the election to Stanfield due to the fact he's a boring guy from Ontario who is most likely to the right of Stanfield. Trudeau could come back and make a second run as leader, so really in this scenario we are looking at a delayed Trudeaumania.

There was once a rule about Canadian politics from the 80s. If the Liberals are ever on the right of the Tories, they lose. Every time the Liberals lose they typically run towards the Left, thus they would pick Trudeau, if he decides to run again after losing the leadership, which isn't guaranteed whatsoever.
 
Well there WAS the 'tradition' of alternating anglo and franco leaders. After Pearson, a francophone was 'expected'.

Not that this was a hard and fast rule, but it did give Trudeau and/or Marchand an advantage.
 
Would the Canadian economy do better without Trudeau's economic policies and no NEP?

Sure. Trudeau spent roughly 300 billion dollars (can't remember the year I'm using for chained CPI on that... 1999?) mostly in direct year-over-year increases in spending--as he inherited a close to balanced budget--and some interest payments, with Michael Wilson adding 200 billion dollars to that, almost entirely in interest payments, before Paul Martin cut back.

However normally spending a sum of money that large buys you things, or at least puts way more money in people's pockets to spend on stuff, or (if you're Reagan) you at least get some nuclear powered supercarriers and make the rich folk that fund you happy. Trudeau is almost without equal in blowing that much money on basically nothing because even post-'79 oil shock it was bad (we should weep for Crosbie's budget and Clark's inability to do basic 1+1 math), but most of that money was blown in the early '80s for zip. Bupkiss. Not that Mulroney had the balls to do much about it either, but it was Trudeau's waste that put him in that position.

That said, the leaders facing him in 1968 as well as the other candidates to Trudeau... weren't great. So who knows? They could have badly screwed up pretty easily too.
 
Pierre Trudeau taught me what charisma was. Trudeau had it like no one before in Canadian politics in my meager lifetime. Trudeau taught me never to vote for someone with charisma. He also taught me that whenever I vote for someone and they win, it's a mistake. I helped elect Bev Oda. What would Robert Stanfield have turned out to be if I voted for him? Might have broke my curse, and couldn't have been worse.
 
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