Spotlight on Justin sparks talk of dynasty
David Migicovsky
Toronto Star Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA - For the past two months, Sacha and his brother Justin nursed their
ailing father around the clock, allowing him the dignity and privacy of
dying at home. No hired nurses. No palliative-care hospital.
Now Justin heads back to Vancouver this weekend after the intense, public
mourning of the death of his father, eager to return to his teaching job
and his very private life.
Some wonder if his life will ever be completely private again. Not just
because of the appetite to know more about the 28-year-old who delivered
such a poised and generously intimate eulogy to his father, but because of
the hunger for strong and eloquent public figures in the country's
political life.
Shortly after the eldest son's tribute, the powerful performance that held
more than a hint of the political passion of the father resonated with
Liberals in the congregation and in offices across the country.
``We were all saying to each other, `Let's find him a riding,' '' said one
senior party official, quite seriously.
``It occurred to me that perhaps this was the first manifestation of a
dynasty,'' Claude Ryan, former Quebec Liberal leader, told Canadian Press.
``And at the least, I was led to believe that the Trudeau family has not
yet said its last word. We may hear a lot more from this young man.''
Others dismissed the wishful thinking. ``Absolutely not,'' said one.
There's no upside for him, the argument went. The son would constantly be
compared to his father.
It's a comparison some say Justin Trudeau would wear well if he chose to.
But those who know him well say forget it. Neither he nor his brother is
likely to enter politics.
``It's just not on the radar screen,'' said one family friend.
``It's just not something Justin's interested in at all,'' said another.
Dominic LeBlanc, son of former governor-general Roméo LeBlanc, said Justin
is ``not interested because he's got a nice life, he's happy, he enjoys his
job and he's not motivated by that, for the moment.
``It doesn't mean in 15 years he might not be, but he's just got no
interest now at all. It's so plain, so clear.''
What is clear is Justin Trudeau has the ability to capture a moment, an
audience, even a nation.
``He was listening at the dinner table,'' chuckled one family friend.
Their mother Margaret wrote in 1979 of her boys: ``Justin is most like
Pierre. He sees no shades of gray, only black and white. Sacha is knowing.
. . . Micha is a clown who fights for his life.''
But the Justin who spoke Tuesday seemed a little more like the mother,
revealing the depth of his and his brother's grief, just as he did when he
spoke, briefly, to media on the death of their youngest brother Michel
nearly two years ago in an avalanche.
Now a teacher at West Point Grey Academy, a private school near the
University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Trudeau had been teaching
French to kindergarten to Grade 2 students, and French and drama to
students in the senior school, Grades 8-12.
He's expected back at the school later this year, and will likely also
teach creative writing, said school headmaster Clive Austin.
Austin said the passionate, articulate and down-to-earth young man that
Canadians have come to see over the past week is the same one who was a
vital member of the school community over the last year.
He joined the staff in January, 1999, after a friend recommended him.
The school offers a beautiful view of the North Shore mountains where
Justin Trudeau often goes skiing and snowboarding.
Within a year and a half, although he is a ``very private man,'' Trudeau
has become a popular teacher, and coach of the Ultimate Frisbee team.
Trudeau contacted Austin over the summer to see if he could take a leave of
absence to be with his father, mother and younger brother.
It wasn't until Trudeau's father died last week that many of the students
realized one of their favourite teachers had a celebrated name.
``He has certainly never, ever given us or the students the feeling that he
is, or now, was, the son of Pierre Elliott Trudeau,'' Austin said in an
interview.
When the former prime minister paid a visit to the school last spring,
``quietly, as Justin's dad,'' said Austin, many of the students didn't
realize who he was. As they started to catch on, Pierre Trudeau took the
time to answer their questions and take interest in them, he added.
``He showed a respect for them as young people,'' Austin said of the former
prime minister. ``His father had a love of youth and that's very much been
inherited by Justin.''
Austin described watching Justin Trudeau on the floor of the classroom
teaching French songs to children aged 5 and 6.
``They're living that language with him and that's the passion that he
has.''
The eldest Trudeau son was born Christmas Day, 1971, and was in the public
eye almost immediately, the first child born to a serving prime minister in
102 years.
``He couldn't have been given a warmer welcome,'' Margaret wrote in her
1979 book Beyond Reason. ``The people of Canada seemed to rejoice as much
as we did over his birth.''
She wrote that as a baby, Justin ``spent many solitary hours tucked away in
one corner of the Speaker's office in the House of Commmons, or bawling his
head off in spare offices.''
He soon became a ``cheerful, bright, manically energetic boy.''
Justin and his two younger brothers, Alexandre (Sacha) - born Christmas
Day, 1973 - and Michel (Micha), adorned family Christmas cards, and were
photographed on official trips in the arms or at the sides of world
leaders.
But for the most part, the prime minister struggled to keep his children's
lives private.
Justin attended Rockcliffe Park Public School and then Lycée Claudel, a
private school, both in Ottawa.
When their father decided to leave politics for good in 1984, he wrote in
his 1993 Memoirs that the decision was made easier, not because polls
showed he would likely lose, but because his boys were entering their
teens.
``I felt the need to spend more time with them,'' Pierre Trudeau wrote.
``For all their lives until then, from the moment each of them was born,
they had been the prime minister's children, set apart from others by that
fact, accompanied by bodyguards and so on. I wanted them to spend at least
their teenage years as ordinary youngsters in Montreal, entirely away from
public life.''
Which is exactly what they did.
Summers were spent travelling with their father: France, England, Ireland,
and Scotland, where Trudeau wrote ``we sought out the territory of our
Elliott ancestors.'' He wrote they were ``an especially tough bunch of
`Borderers' - Scots who lived on the border with England in a state of
almost constant warfare'' with cattle raiding on all sides.
Other summers saw the boys touring China from north to south, partly on
foot, bicycle, and train; later Southeast Asia, Siberia and Japan.
In Montreal, their father returned to private life and private law
practice, walking to work at Heenan Blaikie.
Justin and Sacha enrolled in Montreal's elite Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf,
where Justin would meet the man he says inspired him to go into teaching.
Pierre Paul Daigneault, now retired, taught French and Latin to Justin and
Sacha.
Last spring, on a visit to Montreal to visit his father, Justin dropped in
at the college, and told Daigneault he inspired his love of teaching.
``That gave me pleasure,'' Daigneault admitted in an interview with The
Star.
Latin taught the young Justin Trudeau to be analytical, to reason - a skill
Daigneault says would serve him well if he ever went into politics.
``And let's face it, he's handsome too,'' said Daigneault.
But the eldest son seems reluctant to follow his father's steps,
notwithstanding his eloquent reminder of his father's political beliefs
during Tuesday's eulogy.
In August, he told an interviewer: ``I'm a teacher, and I believe in making
a difference. If I felt that could be done in politics, I might end up
there. But it's not something I'm making plans around.''
With files from Daniel Girard
>>David ========>
--
David Migicovsky, Evil Overlord of ACF
Our new ad-free home: A_C_F-s...@topica.com
d m i g i c o v at n e w s c e n e dot c o m