Margaret Trudeau

Early years

Margaret was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, the daughter of Doris Kathleen (nee Bernard) and James Sinclair, a former Liberal member of the Parliament of Canada and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. One of her maternal ancestors was East India Company figure William Farquhar. Her father was Scottish and her mother's ancestry included English, Scottish, Dutch, French, and a Malaysian five times great-grandmother.

Her family moved to Ottawa, Ontario in 1952 when her father was appointed to the cabinet and returned to North Vancouver after he lost his re-election bid in 1958. Trudeau graduated from Simon Fraser University in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology.

Marriage

As an 18-year-old vacationing in Tahiti with her family, she met Pierre Trudeau, who was then Minister of Justice. Sinclair did not recognize him, and she in fact thought little of their encounter, but Trudeau was captivated by the carefree "flower child", thirty years younger than he, and began to pursue her.

Trudeau was still a bachelor when appointed Prime Minister in 1968. After keeping their romance private, he astonished the country by marrying the 22-year-old Sinclair on March 4, 1971, at a private ceremony in North Vancouver. This caused scepticism among Canadians because of the age difference (Trudeau was then 51), but it was considered typical behaviour for a vivacious Prime Minister who prided himself on his "progressive" views and youthful vigour. As Pierre Trudeau was a Catholic, she converted to Roman Catholicism for their marriage. She would in later life study Buddhism although she now considers herself an Anglican. Asked about her role in a marriage to the prime minister, Margaret Trudeau said, "I want to be more than a rose in my husband's lapel."

Mrs. Trudeau had difficulty adjusting to her new position. "From the day I became Mrs. Pierre Elliott Trudeau," she writes in her memoirs, "a glass panel was gently lowered into place around me, like a patient in a mental hospital who is no longer considered able to make decisions and who cannot be exposed to a harsh light." The couple had three children: Justin (born December 25, 1971), Alexandre (Sacha) (born December 25, 1973), and Michel (October 2, 1975 – November 13, 1998).

Though the couple initially appeared to have a very close and loving relationship, the marriage soon began to fall apart. Margaret resented her husband's constant work-related absences and was forced to raise her three young sons largely by herself. Beyond the normal extensive publicity that her high-profile position brought, on a few instances she made her own headlines. Margaret smuggled drugs in the prime minister's luggage, made scantily clad appearances at Studio 54, and tore apart a quilt work made by Canadian conceptual artist Joyce Wieland that hung on the wall in the prime minister's official residence in Ottawa because it celebrated "reason over passion".

Over time, the marriage disintegrated to the point that, as recounted in her book, Margaret had an affair with US Senator Ted Kennedy. She was also associated with members of the Rolling Stones, including Ronnie Wood and (according to Keith Richards's autobiography, Life) Mick Jagger.

Suffering from stress and bouts of bipolar depression, she separated from her husband in 1977 and became a much-talked-about jet-setter. She gave many "tell-all" interviews to Canadian and American magazines and appeared in two motion pictures. Pierre Trudeau won custody of the children and did not pay any spousal support. Margaret had a difficult time earning a living after her marriage. She wrote the book Beyond Reason about her marriage.

On the eve of the 1979 election, in which Trudeau's party lost the majority of seats in the House of Commons, Margaret was dancing at Studio 54 nightclub in New York City. A photo of her there was featured on many front pages across Canada.

Personal life

Margaret Trudeau filed for a no-fault divorce on November 16, 1983 which was finalized on April 2, 1984, and on April 18, 1984, with her three sons attending, she married in a civil ceremony Ottawa real-estate developer Fried Kemper, with whom she had two children: son Kyle (born 1984); and daughter Alicia (born 1988).

In November 1998, the Trudeaus' youngest son, Michel, an avid outdoorsman, was killed when an avalanche swept him to the bottom of British Columbia's Kokanee Lake. The loss of her son was devastating for Trudeau, and she suffered another major depressive episode that led to her second divorce.

When Pierre Trudeau died in 2000, Margaret Trudeau was at his bedside with their surviving sons, Justin and Alexandre. Speaking in 2010 about her marriage to Trudeau she said: "Just because our marriage ended didn’t mean the love stopped."

On October 19, 2015, her eldest son, Justin Trudeau, led the Liberal Party to a majority government, becoming the 23rd Prime Minister of Canada. During the campaign period, Trudeau avoided campaigning herself in fear of suggesting her son was "so unready he needs his mummy."

Work, advocacy and writing

Today, Trudeau is the honorary president of WaterCan, an Ottawa-based organization dedicated to helping the poorest communities in developing countries build sustainable water supply and sanitation services.

On May 5, 2006, Trudeau announced that she had been suffering from bipolar disorder. Since then, she has advocated for reducing the social stigma of mental illness — bipolar disorder in particular — with speaking engagements across North America. She is an honorary patron of the Canadian Mental Health Association.

Trudeau is the author of Changing My Mind, a book about her personal experience having bipolar disorder, published by HarperCollins Canada in 2010.

Award

On June 19, 2013 she was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Western Ontario in recognition of her work to combat mental illness.

Filmography

Television