In 1967 Canada's prime minister, Lester Pearson retired. So Trudeau decided to start a campaign. His ideas were popular, and on April 6, 1968, he won the post and became Canada's 15th prime minister.
Trudeau's first big test came in October of 1970. Around this time was when the idea of Québec separating from the rest of Canada was quite popular. Although Trudeau was born and raised Québécois he was strongly against the idea of Québec separating as he was a very nationalistic man. This lead to many Québécois disliking, or even hating Trudeau. "During the 1960s Trudeau became convinced that Quebec would enjoy a better future inside Canada than separate from it, and his chief motivation for coming to Ottawa had been to achieve that goal." Pierre had a strong opinion on this topic and it was not going to be changed, this did not make the people of Quebec very happy at all, and his controversial handling of the "October Crisis" did not help in changing any minds. .
Le Front de Libération du Québec was the group that lead the separatist movement in Quebec throughout the sixties. The FLQ were by no means a peaceful group, often resorting to terrorism to distribute their message. Throughout 1968 and 1969 FLQ had several bombing attempts around various places in Montreal. . Then on October 5th 1970 the extremist group took it one step further abducting British diplomat, James Richard Cross. Quickly after the kidnapping, threats from FLQ surfaced, they demanded for 23 prison inmates that committed crimes in name of the FLQ to be released or they would kill Cross. In the beginning, Trudeau downplayed the abduction; the Quebec government even said they were open to negotiation. Despite a certain level of government co-operation, things got worse. To prove that they meant business, five days later on October 10th FLQ abducted Quebec minister of labour and senior cabinet minister Pierre Laporte.