Top 10 Facts about Justin Trudeau

A photo of Justin Trudeau by the White House – Wikimedia commons

Top 10 Facts about Justin Trudeau

Justin Pierre James Trudeau born on 25 December 1971 is a Canadian politician who is the 23rd and current prime minister of Canada. He has served as the prime minister of Canada since 2015 and as the leader of the Liberal Party since 2013. Trudeau is the second-youngest prime minister in Canadian history after Joe Clark.

Trudeau was born in Ottawa and attended Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf. He graduated from McGill University in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in literature, then in 1998 acquired a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of British Columbia.

After graduating he taught at the secondary school level in Vancouver, before relocating back to Montreal in 2002 to further his studies. In the article are the top ten facts about Justin Trudeau.

1. He is the eldest son of Pierre Trudeau

A photo of Pierre Trudeau by Rob Mieremet / Anefo – Wikimedia commons

Pierre Elliott Trudeau was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. He also briefly served as the leader of the Opposition from 1979 to 1980.

He served as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 1968 to 1984. Trudeau practised law at the Montreal law firm of Heenan Blaikie. He is the first to be the child or other relative of a previous holder of the post.

2. Trudeau is the second-youngest prime minister in Canadian history after Joe Clark

Joseph Clark best known as Joe Clark is a Canadian statesman, businessman, writer, and politician who served as the 16th prime minister of Canada from 1979 to 1980. Clark rose quickly in federal politics, entering the House of Commons in the 1972 election and winning the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in 1976 though he was inexperienced.

He won a minority government in the 1979 election, defeating the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau and ending sixteen years of continuous Liberal rule. Taking office the day before his 40th birthday, Clark is the youngest person to become Prime Minister.

3. Margaret Sinclair is the mother of Justin Trudeau

A photo of Margaret Sincalir by Simon Fraser University – University Communications – Wikimedia commons

Sinclair is a Canadian activist. She married Pierre Trudeau, the 15th prime minister of Canada, in 1971; three years after he became prime minister. They divorced in 1984, during his final months in office. She is the mother of Justin Trudeau.

She is the first woman in Canadian history to have been both the wife and the mother of prime ministers. Trudeau is an advocate for people with bipolar disorder, with which she has been diagnosed.

On June 23, 1971, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s wife of four months, the former Margaret Sinclair, was pregnant and due in December. Justin Trudeau was born on December 25, 1971, at 9:27 pm EST at the Ottawa Civic Hospital.

4. Michel Trudeau is Justin’s brother

Ever heard about the son of a prime minister who died but his body was never retrieved? Michel Charles-Émile Trudeau was the youngest son of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Margaret Trudeau and the younger brother of current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He died in an avalanche on November 13, 1998, while skiing in Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park.

Trudeau died as the result of an avalanche on Friday, November 13, 1998, aged 23. At the time, he had been working for about a year at Red Mountain Resort and living in Rossland, British Columbia. He was taking a backcountry skiing trip with some friends in Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park when he was swept into Kokanee Lake and unable to reach the shore.

His companions were unable to effect a rescue, and Trudeau drowned. An extensive search was launched, but his body has never been found. The lake’s high altitude and limited days of open waters each year prevented divers from completing the search.

5. Alexandre Trudeau is also Justin Trudeau’s brother

Alexandre Emmanuel “Sacha” Trudeau is a Canadian filmmaker, journalist and author of Barbarian Lost. He is the second son of Canada’s former prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, and Margaret Trudeau, and the younger brother of Canada’s current prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

In the years following his father’s death, Trudeau produced documentaries for Canadian television. In 2003, he was one of the highest-profile Canadian journalists covering the 2003 invasion of Iraq, producing a documentary film for the CTV program W5, Embedded In Baghdad.

6. His parents divorced when he was five

Trudeau’s parents announced their separation on May 27, 1977, when he was five years old. His father was given primary custody over him. There had been repeated rumours of reconciliation for many years afterwards. However, his mother’s attorney Michael Levine filed in Toronto to the Supreme Court of Ontario for a no-fault divorce on November 16, 1983, which was finalized on April 2, 1984

His father had announced his intention to retire as prime minister on February 29 of that year. Eventually, his parents came to an amicable joint-custody arrangement and learned to get along quite well. Trudeau has three half-siblings, Kyle and Alicia, from his mother’s remarriage to Fried Kemper, and Sarah, from his father’s relationship with Deborah Coyne.

7. Deborah Coyne was partially step-mother

A photo of Deborah Coyne by Ryland Coyne – Wikimedia commons

Coyne dated former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau but they never got married and so she never got a chance to be fully Justin’s stepmother. Her daughter, Sarah Elisabeth Coyne, is Trudeau’s only daughter. Deborah Margaret Ryland Coyne is a Canadian constitutional lawyer, professor, and author. She is the cousin of journalist Andrew Coyne and actress Susan Coyne, and the niece of former Bank of Canada governor James Elliott Coyne.

8. Justin once groped a female journalist

In August 2000, Justin Trudeau attended the Kokanee Summit in Creston, British Columbia, to raise funds in honour of his brother Michel Trudeau and other avalanche victims. After the event, an unsigned editorial in the Creston Valley Advance, a local newspaper, accused Trudeau of having groped an unnamed female reporter while at the music festival.

The editorial stated Trudeau provided an apology to the reporter. Trudeau was questioned about the groping incident but said he did not remember any negative incidents from that time. His apology and later statement about the event have been described as hypocritical, while responses to the story have been described as a witch hunt or non-story.

9. Trudeau starred in the two-part CBC Television miniseries in 2007

Trudeau is one of several children of former prime ministers who have become Canadian media personalities. Trudeau starred in the two-part CBC Television miniseries The Great War, which gave an account of Canada’s participation in the First World War. He portrayed his fifth cousin, twice removed, Major Talbot Mercer Papineau, who was killed on October 30, 1917, during the Battle of Passchendaele.

10. Trudeau supported the Liberal Party from a young age

A photo of Trudeau by Andrea Hanks – Wikimedia commons

He offered his support to party leader John Turner in the 1988 federal election. Two years later, he defended Canadian federalism at a student event at the Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, which he attended.

Following his father’s death, Trudeau became more involved with the Liberal Party throughout the 2000s. Along with Olympian Charmaine Crooks, he co-hosted a tribute to outgoing prime minister Jean Chrétien at the party’s 2003 leadership convention and was appointed to chair a task force on youth renewal after the party’s defeat in the 2006 federal election.