Word Count: 1385 Words
To: Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau
From: Mitesh Patel, Cabinet Minister
Date: October 12, 1970
Subject: Implementation of War Measures Act
As informed by the party that you have asked all the cabinet ministers of your government to lay down their suggestions on whether the War Measures Act should be implemented or not and should the government send their troops to Quebec, I hereby lay my points of view as a cabinet minister of your party on the situation we are facing in Quebec by stating both the advantages and disadvantages of the war measures act. In this memo, I will be highlighting on why the government should not implement the war measures act centring more over the demerits upon the merits of the act that province might have to face by putting this act into practice.
It is challenging situation that we are currently facing in the province of Quebec as we experienced one of the unpredicted incident taking place due to kidnapping of our prominent political member Mr. James Cross (British Trade Commissioner). He is currently taken as a hostage by FLQ activists on the 5th of October 1970. FLQ are using Mr. Cross as a tool to lay out their demands mentioned in FLQ manifesto which includes freeing of the political leaders, an airplane to send them to their families, a voluntary tax from government and no surveillance actions taken by police to search the kidnappers etc. They basically kidnapped Mr. Cross because they want Quebec to be set independent as a free society. As we are still investigating the case of kidnapping, soon after the 10th of October another prominent member of our party Mr. Pierre Laporte (minister of Immigration and of manpower and labour) is kidnapped by the same group of radicals as the demands by the group were not considered serious in nature by our government. There is a need of taking a quick and
Bibliography: Borovoy, Alan. Rebuilding a free society. Toronto: New Press, 1971. Johnson, Carole de Vault and William. Quebec. Scarborough: Fleet Publishers, 1982. —. The October Crisis. Scarborough: Fleet Publishers, 1982. Smith, Denis. The Canadian Encyclopedia. n.d. 28 November 2011 <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA008439>.