Trudeau glamour, power and tragedy echoes America’s Kennedy dynasty

Glamour and tragedy have shadowed Canada’s Trudeau family which this week enters a new era of power.

Margaret TRUDEAU in the 1970's then wife of canadian PM Pierre Trudeau - headshot

Canada is heralding the arrival of a new political dynasty with the elevation of Justin Trudeau to the prime ministership. He follows in the political footsteps of his father Pierre, as famous for his stint as PM as for the antics of his glamorous wife Margaret.

And, in echoes of the Kennedy dynasty in the US, the Trudeau name is also shadowed by grief, with a son lost in a tragic accident.

Pierre, founder of the dynasty, was born Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau on October 18, 1919. He was the son of French-descended Joseph Charles-Emile Trudeau, known as Charles, a lawyer who became wealthy investing in a series of service stations. A devoted and affectionate father, Charles died in 1935 leaving his fortune to his children, including Pierre who followed in his father’s footsteps by studying law.

When France fell to Germany in 1940, prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King passed legislation introducing conscription. Pierre took part in anticonscription rallies but was called up for officer training and as a conscript avoided fighting overseas.

In 1943 he completed his law degree and in 1944 furthered his studies, in political economy, at Harvard in the US. He came under the influence of liberal thinkers and began to regret his opposition to the war.

Pierre and Margaret Trudeao in the 1970s.

In 1946 he left Harvard to attend the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and started on a doctorate from the London School of Economics. He didn’t finish his dissertation, but England had a profound influence on his ideas of Canada’s place in the Commonwealth.

In 1948 Pierre embarked on a world tour, during which he was arrested as a Jewish spy in Jordan and only just escaped China as it fell to Mao’s communists in 1949. He returned to Montreal in 1949 to become involved in an asbestos miners’ strike.

His radicalism didn’t seem to harm his chances applying for a public service job with the Privy Council. He quit the Privy Council job in 1951, angered by Canadian involvement in the Korean War, and practised law, focusing on cases involving labour and civil liberties.

He also published a book about the asbestos strike and wrote articles for the Cite Libre, a civil liberties periodical he had helped found in 1950.

While Professor of Law at Montreal University from 1961 Pierre found himself drifting toward the politics of the “new wave” Canadian Liberal Party (Parti Liberal du Canada or PLC). Elected to parliament in 1965, the unconventional, progressive Trudeau moved up in the party.

As minister of justice he reformed laws on homosexuality and abortion and created stricter gun laws. Elected leader of the party in April 1968, he became PM two weeks later.

Despite a brief romance with Barbra Streisand in 1969, the 51-year-old bachelor married Margaret Sinclair, the 22-year-old daughter of a former cabinet member in March 1971.

The first of their three children, Justin, was born in December. Pierre was often seen in public as the doting father and devoted husband, but the marriage faltered. Margaret, then undiagnosed as bipolar, had drug problems and, while still married to Trudeau, was often seen nightclubbing with rockers and actors, including Ryan O’Neal, Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood, with whom she was said by Keith Richards to have had an affair. She also had a fling with Ted Kennedy.

The couple separated in 1977, divorced in 1984 and Margaret married real estate developer Fried Kemper soon after. Pierre was romantically linked with actor Margot Kidder,
who played Lois Lane in Superman. Pierre served as PM until May 1979, was re-elected in February 1980, holding the office until he resigned in 1984. During this second term he secured Canada’s independence from the British Parliament. Trudeau later began dating constitutional lawyer Deborah Coyne, with whom he would have a daughter Sarah in 1991.

Tragically, his youngest son Michel died in 1998 at the age of 23 after being swept into Kokanee Lake in British Columbia by an avalanche while skiing. Margaret sank into a depression that ended her second marriage and Pierre’s health deteriorated. He died in September 2000.

After a varied career that included teaching and acting, Justin entered parliament in 2008. He has now become the first son of a Canadian PM to also become prime minister.

Father and son prime ministers

● William Pitt (the Elder) British PM in two terms from 1756—61 and 1766—68. His son William Pitt (the Younger) became PM from 1783-1801 and 1804-06.

● George Grenville, British PM from 1763-1765. His son William PM from 1806-07.

● Sir Vere Cornwall Bird Prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda from 1981-94. His son ,

Lester Bird, was prime minister 1994-2004.

Originally published as Trudeau glamour, power and tragedy echoes America’s Kennedy dynasty