Right now I'm getting into some texts on the 1970 October Crisis and Trudeau's invocation of the
War Measures Act. There is relatively little scholarship in support of Trudeau's response to the crisis, excepting a pretty interesting account from William Tetley, who was a cabinet minister under Bourassa at the time of the kidnappings. I'm getting the other side of the story from Pierre Vallières, the radical behind
White N-ggers of America and, arguably, the FLQ itself. It's been an interesting pursuit (I've read a few other papers on the subject as well). To use Trudeau's words, there
do seem to be a lot of "bleeding hearts" in the camp against the
WMA, but the arguments from people like Tetley seem to rely more on excuses and blame than anything else ("the police were incompetent and couldn't give us the right information—we had no other choice but to use emergency powers immediately!"). It's a good topic.
