1970

War Measures Act

1970 | October 16 – During the October Crisis in Montreal, militant separatists kidnap a British trade commissioner and murder a Quebec cabinet minister. Restrictions under the War Measures Act are proclaimed by Trudeau, “just watch me”.

A newsboy holds up a newspaper with a banner headline reporting the invoking of the War Measures Act, in Ottawa, Oct. 16, 1970 the first time Canada had invoked the act in peacetime. The act was put into effect following the kidnapping of British diplomat James Cross and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte by the terrorist FLQ. An author of Quebec’s high-school history textbooks casts the federal government as the main villain of the October Crisis 40 years ago, disputes that Pierre Laporte was murdered, and defends the terrorist FLQ whose victims were, he says, mere “collateral damage” in the greater cause of independence. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Peter Bregg