Do you think Pierre Elliot Trudeau's issuing of the War Measures Act due to the FLQ Crisis was a good move?

Question

Do you think Pierre Elliot Trudeau's issuing of the War Measures Act due to the FLQ Crisis was a good move?

Answer 1

This is one of those damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situations. At the time, it seemed he did not act soon enough.  How many internal terrorist events do you tolerate before you take serious counter-measures? If Trudeau had not acted when he did, and the situation had escalated to even limited urban guerilla warfare, he would have had to invoke the War Measures Act anyway.  As it turned out, Trudeau finally acted, and the situation rapidly calmed down, but the subsequent scandals over actions of the RCMP created a lot of problems.

This is a good question to ask here, because it parallels the U.S. reaction to 9-11.  It is easy to see in hindsight that U.S. policy in the "war on terror" was an over-reaction in 2002 and 2003.  But at the time, there was overwhelming support for it among the people, just as there was overwhelming support for Trudeau.  We'll see how history judges the Iraq war in 2040.