Ryan Hamilton is a graduate student in history at the University of Oxford.
The October Crisis of 1970 saw the kidnapping of British diplomat James Cross and Quebec deputy premier Pierre Laporte, as well as Mr. Laporte’s murder by the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ). It remains one of the most controversial events in Canadian history, primarily because of then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s unprecedented decision to invoke the War Measures Act in peacetime. A mix of previously overlooked and newly declassified government documents shines a revealing new light on these events and, in particular, the role of Cuba.
Historians have long complained that many government records about the October Crisis are inaccessible. Indeed, The Globe and Mail’s Secret Canada series has recently covered how difficult it is to gain access to historical government documents, which is critical for historians. The newly declassified October Crisis documents include papers from the Prime Minister’s Office and the Department of External Affairs that are housed at Library and Archives Canada, and some were revealed by the Canada Declassified project at the University of Toronto.
Three days after Mr. Cross’s Oct. 5, 1970, kidnapping, Canadian chargé d’affaires Bill Warden met with the Cuban foreign minister, Raúl Roa García, in Havana. The FLQ had demanded safe passage in exchange for Mr. Cross’s release. The Canadian embassy suspected that Communist Cuba had been sympathetic to Quebec separatism “for ideological reasons,” but Mr. Roa now feared those sympathies would upend the Canada-Cuba relationship.
Canadian intelligence had long suspected ties between Cuba and the FLQ, with a 1964 government study reporting that the Cuban consul in Montreal had suggested that “Quebec should be made a socialist state by revolutionary means” at a separatist meeting. FLQ co-founder Georges Schoeters met Fidel Castro in Montreal in 1959 and travelled to Cuba several times afterward. A government report from late October, 1970, added that “since 1964 there have been indication[s] that FLQ members have been training in Cuba for future operations in Quebec,” but another report concluded that this support, if present at all, had ceased before 1969. In any crisis, intelligence is often flawed, and decision-makers operate with incomplete information – October, 1970, was no different.
Mr. Warden met with Mr. Roa again on Oct. 9, and Cuba agreed to take the FLQ members if Canada asked them to. Mr. Roa had come from a meeting with Mr. Castro and Mr. Warden believed that Mr. Roa’s “comments probably reflected [Mr. Castro’s] thinking.” Mr. Roa said that Quebec independence would be “very unfortunate,” as it would reduce Quebec to an “island,” and leave Canada less able to stand up to the United States. Mr. Roa added that Cuba appreciated Canada’s “independent policy toward Cuba,” as Canada had not joined the American sanctions on the country. Mr. Castro asked Mr. Roa to “stress” that the “paramount consideration was Cuba’s relationship with Canada.” Having realized after Mr. Cross’s kidnapping that ties with the FLQ could disrupt their relationship with Canada, the Cubans now sought to be as helpful as possible.
But the crisis quickly escalated further when another FLQ cell kidnapped Mr. Laporte on Oct. 10. On Oct. 13, Mr. Trudeau, when asked how far he would go to quell the threat, replied, “Just watch me.” He invoked the War Measures Act for the third time in Canadian history on Oct. 16. Mr. Roa called Mr. Warden later that day to offer “carte blanche” co-operation and added that Cuba would “exceed” Canadian requests. Specifically, he offered the Cuban consulate in Montreal and added, “If there were other ways in which the Cuban government could be of assistance then we should draw this to his attention.”
A plan to provide safe conduct to the FLQ to end the crisis was announced on Oct. 17: The FLQ, along with Mr. Cross and Mr. Laporte, would have safe passage to the grounds of Expo 67, temporarily an extension of the Cuban consulate and its diplomatic immunity. The FLQ would surrender Mr. Cross and Mr. Laporte, along with their weapons, to the Cuban consul before boarding a flight to Cuba. Once the plane landed, the Cuban consul would release Mr. Cross and Mr. Laporte.
Early on Oct. 18, the embassy in Havana received an urgent message from Ottawa: “Press reports indicated that both … hostages Cross and Laporte are dead.” However, Mr. Cross was still alive and the federal government was optimistic that his kidnappers were “less blood-thirsty,” although they were still concerned that the FLQ might try to hold him for the long haul. Accordingly, as the government emphasized privately, “We therefore have to direct our efforts to convincing the kidnappers that there is no hope over the long run, and re-emphasize the safe conduct provisions.”
In December, when Mr. Cross and his kidnappers were found, the FLQ cut a deal similar to the one on offer in October: They travelled to Expo 67 and then onto Cuba, while Mr. Cross was handed over to the Cuban consul and then released. Two Canadian diplomats accompanied Mr. Cross’s kidnappers on the plane and reported back afterward in previously unreported documents. Claude Roquet, one of the diplomats, observed that “I sometimes felt I was talking to fairly moderate separatists gone wild.”
FLQ member Jacques Cossette-Trudel told Ormond Dier, the other diplomat, that they never considered killing Mr. Cross. His radicalism came from seeing “social and economic deprivation” when teaching in the east end of Montreal, and he spoke of wishing to “inspire the deprived people of Quebec to rise up and seize economic power.” He cited philosopher Frantz Fanon, describing him as a “prophet whose theories applied exactly to the present situation in Quebec.” Nevertheless, Mr. Cossette-Trudel also thought that “new 20th-century conditions require new solutions.” Indeed, Mr. Cross reported to one of Mr. Trudeau’s staffers, in an interview thought lost, that his captors “roared with laughter” at the suggestion that the FLQ was inspired by French president Charles de Gaulle’s 1967 “Vive le Québec libre” speech.
After Mr. Cross’s release, and the arrest of Mr. Laporte’s killers in late December, no one assumed this would be the end of the FLQ. Mr. Cossette-Trudel told Mr. Dier that the FLQ would be the “dominant political force” in Quebec by 1972. Another government report warned of the risk of numerous FLQ attacks throughout 1971. But none of this came to pass. When Quebec came close to separating in the 1995 referendum, it was through ballots, not bombs. The FLQ remains a fascinating, haunting moment in Canadian history, precisely because of how extreme their violence was. Mr. Laporte remains the only Canadian politician to be assassinated in living memory.
This fascinating history is only revealed because these documents are accessible, but countless more stories remain closed and untold because access to archives is so limited in Canada. When these documents are inaccessible, our history is inaccessible. Access laws fail to recognize the difference between modern and historical government records, often leading to long delays before records are available. If we want to tell Canadian stories, and impose the last and most full measure of accountability on our leaders, more archives must be open and accessible.