Libertarians occupy an awkward position in the political landscape. A lot of my friends try to pass themselves off as libertarians, bragging about their belief in low taxation, only to trail off and leave an unnerving silence when it comes to social issues. However, to be a libertarian, one must unite both creeds, under the one intellectually consistent ideology. One must believe that not only does the state not have any role to play in the boardroom, but in the bedroom, too.

On 26 August 1969, the Canadian Criminal Law Amendment Act came into effect, changing forever how much the Canadian state would involve itself in affairs in the bedroom. It decriminalised homosexuality, the contraceptive pill, and abortion. So great an impact did it have that, when passing through the House of Commons, it was known as the ‘Omnibus Bill’, although still bearing the more dour name of Bill C-150.

The bill was proposed by Pierre Trudeau in 1967. Trudeau was then the Justice Minister, and responsible for sweeping away all the outdated and outmoded laws of state. In this capacity, he made it quite clear that laws that impinged upon sexual rights would be first to go, declaring, “There is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” As it happens, Trudeau was elected leader of the Liberal Party, and therefore Prime Minister, at the marathon 1968 party convention, allowing him to get his bill passed and to dominate Canadian politics for the next two decades.

To claim that Trudeau as a libertarian idol would be just as false as my conservative friends to claim their own libertarian credentials. Trudeau never understood economic liberalism, and, as time went on, his sence of righteous justice, his intolerance of intolerance, declined. In 1970, he even declared war on Canada (really, he did). However, thanks to his force of character, on this day 38 years ago, the face of Canada changed, and the frontiers of the state rolled back, so that they could never threaten the bedroom again.