Both at home and abroad, Pierre Elliott Trudeau has often been seen as a figure of the left. Thanks to his early engagements with Marxist thinkers like Harold Laski, immersion in the progressive milieu of postwar Quebec, and proximity to figures in the labor and socialist movements before entering electoral politics, the former Canadian prime minister retains for some an at least partially radical reputation.

A new book by historian Christo Aivalis, however, makes a convincing case for Trudeau’s consistent adherence, in both thought and action, to the liberal tradition. But, as its title suggests, The Constant Liberal: Pierre Trudeau, Organized Labour and the Canadian Social Democratic Left is also concerned with the Left as both a political and intellectual force during the critical decades of Trudeau’s life and career. This makes it doubly useful as a clarifying account of one of Canada’s most influential politicians and a chronicle of a particularly vibrant period for its since-tamed labor and left movements.

Throughout the 1970s, Canadian capitalism faced a series of periodic crises wrought by sluggish growth rates, rising unemployment, and high inflation. As in several other Western economies, these coincided with a moment of growing working-class militancy and labor power. Arguably the most interesting chapters in Aivalis’ book detail the ensuing conflict between capital’s desire to retain a high share of profits and the socialist left’s competing vision of a redistributive politics coupled with economic democracy — a conflict which would result in fierce battles over both wage and price policies and industrial relations.