Mr. Speaker, three days before the Quebec election on April 29, 1970, we saw the biggest hoax and greatest manipulation of the media in the history of Quebec, by none other than Pierre Elliott Trudeau, then prime minister of Canada.
Polls showed that the Liberals and the Parti Québécois were neck and neck. Mr. Trudeau and the federal Liberals decided to interfere in the election campaign, by provoking fears and raising the spectre of an economic exodus. Mr. Trudeau and his henchmen orchestrated a fake exodus of capital. On April 25, a caravan of nine Brink's trucks, insured for $450 million, left Montreal and headed for Toronto, witnessed by a single journalist from The Gazette, who had been tipped off by an anonymous caller. The newspaper, in cahoots with Mr. Trudeau, never published the photos taken by this journalist, but was happy to spread the story.
Robert Bourassa and his team eventually won the election.
Mr. Trudeau claimed to be a defender of rights and democracy. But we would say he showed contempt for democracy, both in staging the Brink's caravan and in locking up activists during the October crisis of 1970.