For Pierre Trudeau, the ends justified the means in combatting Quebec separatism

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He haunts us still.

That now famous line from a 1990 biography of Pierre Trudeau was meant as a compliment by its authors Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall. Their bestselling portrait of our 15th prime minister went to great lengths – more than 500 pages in all – to depict his “magnificent obsession” with combatting Quebec separatism as nothing short of heroic.

That interpretation of Mr. Trudeau’s handling of the separatist threat has never held water in Quebec itself, of course. Most Quebeckers would probably agree that Mr. Trudeau was a giant of Canadian politics who haunts them still. Just not in a good way.

The full truth about Mr. Trudeau’s secret efforts to thwart a legitimate democratic movement in Quebec during the late 1960s and early 1970s is still emerging and huge gaps remain in the public’s understanding of the scope of his government’s anti-separatist operations. But the truth is nevertheless emerging, if only gradually.

In 1992, The Globe and Mail obtained the minutes of a 1969 cabinet meeting at which “the use of the military and clandestine means against Quebec separatists [was] discussed” even before the 1970 October Crisis and Mr. Trudeau’s invocation of the War Measures Act to quash the Front de libération du Québec terrorist threat.

During the early 1970s, a unit within the RCMP’s Security Service called G Branch conducted an illicit no-holds-barred operation against the separatist movement that involved such tactics as breaking into homes and offices to gain information about Parti Québécois members. G Branch agents intimidated PQ sympathizers. The unit was also behind the 1972 burning of a barn that belonged to the mother of an FLQ member.

Whether the federal government of the day knew about, or even authorized, the operations of the RCMP’s “dirty tricks squad” has long been shrouded in mystery. But a recent journal article based on previously classified documents sheds new light on the question.

Authors Dennis Molinaro and Philip Davies obtained government records under access to information laws that detail a special operation set up within the Prime Minister’s Office in early 1971 whose purpose “was the surveillance of and ‘political action’ against separatism at large and primarily the non-violent, legal branch of the separatist movement.” Their article in Intelligence and National Security also details efforts by the PMO to enlist the RCMP’s Security Service in this campaign, which the RCMP code-named FAN TAN.

According to the article, the then head of the Security Service, John Starnes, resisted the PMO’s efforts to politicize his agency, fearing a potential “political scandal of major proportions.” The authors add “there are, however, internal RCMP documents that show how FAN TAN triggered profoundly different responses” from within the Security Service itself.

Mr. Molinaro, a security expert at Ontario Tech University, and Mr. Davies, a professor of intelligence studies at Britain’s Brunel University, describe Mr. Trudeau as “undoubtedly the most hawkish” at a 1969 meeting of the cabinet committee on security and intelligence at which tactics to combat separatism were discussed. Then justice minister John Turner, external affairs minister Mitchell Sharp and secretary of state Gérard Pelletier all voiced strong reservations regarding the tactics Mr. Trudeau suggested, which are themselves redacted.

“The documents reveal that the PM had wanted more intelligence on separatism and up for consideration was even utilizing the military to collect intelligence on law-abiding Quebeckers,” they write. “The lack of a legal framework and guidelines for the RCMP on intelligence collection, combined with the zealousness of the PM in going after separatism, was a recipe for the scandals that would emerge in the 1970s involving the RCMP.”

FAN TAN was set up in 1971 by Mr. Trudeau’s then-principal secretary, Marc Lalonde. The unit appears to have been disbanded after the 1972 election, when Mr. Lalonde was replaced as principal secretary by Martin O’Connell. Mr. Lalonde, who died in May, later held a series of top cabinet posts before quitting politics in 1984.

For Mr. Lalonde and his boss, the ends appear to have justified the means. As Mr. Molinaro and Mr. Davies write: “The FAN TAN papers further reinforce the accumulating evidence that, far from being a service gone ‘rogue’, the government of the day supported the RCMP in its intelligence collection activities until scandal forced the government to call an [inquiry].”

Even so, the subsequent inquiry into the RCMP’s activities led by Justice David McDonald ignored the FAN TAN incident – and Canadians deserve to know why.

“If there is an untold story still to emerge from the archives,” Mr. Molinaro and Mr. Davies conclude, “it is more likely that of the disingenuous conduct of successive Canadian governments regarding their intelligence services than of any systematic misconduct by those services.”