Would Pierre Trudeau have retired in 1971/1972 if he had patriated the Constitution then?

[Benjamin Frank]

In 1971, the Victoria Charter nearly passed and would have patriated the Constitution 11 years before Trudeau finally was able to accomplish this goal of his.

Had Trudeau accomplished this in 1971, he could have claimed to have achieved three of his four goals that he ran on for the Liberal leadership and in the 1968 campaign.

1.Passing an official languages act.
2.Patriating the Constitution while adding essentially Diefenbaker's Bill of Rights
3.Promising a 'Just Society'
4. Enabling participatory democracy.

The official languages act was passed in Trudeau's first term from 1968-1972.

Trudeau could have claimed the equality provisions in the Victoria Charter would enable the Just Society and he gave up on participatory democracy after it came to be nothing more than the government spending money on consultants who asked the public questions the public weren't really interested in answering.

 The Victoria Charter nearly passed in 1971 but the then Liberal Premier of Quebec Robert Bourassa withdrew his support at the last minute.

Trudeau was likely also not worried about the separatist threat in Quebec back then.  The separatists were discredited after the FLQ Crisis and the P.Q calling on the government to negotiate with them.  Trudeau also believed that the patriation of the constitution and especially the Official Languages Act would satisfy the demands of most Francophone Quebecers as it would make 'Quebecers feel comfortable in the rest of Canada, and make the rest of Canadians comfortable in Quebec.'

[Don Vito Corleone]

NO. Trudeau loved being PM too much. Even in 1984, with everything that had happened by that point and facing near-certain defeat and with many in his own party wanting him gone, he still was rather hesitant.

[Benjamin Frank]

NO. Trudeau loved being PM too much. Even in 1984, with everything that had happened by that point and facing near-certain defeat and with many in his own party wanting him gone, he still was rather hesitant.

I'm not sure about that.  I think Trudeau stayed on after the patriation of the Constitution in 1982 to poison the well for his presumed successor, John Turner.  This most obvious example of this was making Turner agree to Trudeau's patronage appointments.

Turner became Trudeau's presumed successor only sometime after Trudeau's first term when he was appointed Finance Minister at the start of the second term.