What we’ve learned from a new book about Justin Trudeau

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OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has had nearly nine rocky years in power, marked by the election of president Donald Trump, a global pandemic and a cost-of-living crisis that’s providing powerful ammunition for his rival, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

Journalist and author Stephen Maher interviewed Trudeau and more than 200 political insiders for his new book The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau, described as chronicling the Liberal leader’s “triumphs and failures,” out this week.

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Here are some of the book’s more surprising and interesting revelations, including how Trudeau might have saved his now failed marriage and his unusual aversion to business people. (You can also read a recounting of the tense inside story of how the Trudeau blackface scandal went down inside his inner circle in an excerpt National Post republished recently).

Three former Liberal ministers describe Trudeau as ‘narcissistic’

Trudeau has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way in his nine years in power. Maher found “several” people who have worked closely with the prime minister who described him as “narcissistic” — all of them anonymous.

Three of them are former ministers. “I think he’s narcissistic,” said one of them. “I think he truly believes that he is needed by Canada, has done great things to save Canada.” Said another one: “He really believes he operates above that sort of mortal existence.” A third said Trudeau has “gotten to a place now where he actually believes what he’s doing is good for the country, irrespective of anything else.”

A close friend of Trudeau said the diagnosis might be fair, but that it is to be expected from anyone in his position. “You know any prime minister who wasn’t a narcissist? I mean, how do you win? How do you ever decide you should be prime minister?”

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Advisers warned him his free trip to the Aga Khan’s luxury island was a bad idea

Trudeau’s first ethical challenge came a bit more than a year into his first mandate, when he, his family and close friends took a free holiday vacation at the billionaire Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas. Trudeau was found to have violated multiple ethics laws, as the Aga Khan did business with the federal government.

Maher’s book reveals that when National Post blew the lid off the trip, it surprised even some of the prime minister’s own staff. But those in his inner circle who were aware of his plans — chief of staff Katie Telford, principal secretary Gerald Butts and director of communications Kate Purchase — all advised him that it was a bad idea. At least if he was going to go, they advised, he should let Canadians know ahead of time so his team could try to “spin” it before it broke in the news.

But Trudeau did not listen. “There was nobody who was stopping Justin Trudeau from going on that f–king trip,” said one senior staffer.

A senior Liberal describes MAID as a ‘metaphor of this government’

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In a chapter called “Annus Horribilis,” Maher revisits former governor general David Johnston’s tumultuous mandate as “special rapporteur” on foreign interference and how the federal government finally agreed to hold a public inquiry on the issue.

“Trudeau had ended up in the right place, but only after wasting time and energy, looking duplicitous and incompetent, and making a revered elder look like a fool,” Maher writes.

As described by a senior Liberal before Johnston resigned (but after he probably should have): “The main problem in this government is we are masochistic and love to extend our pain over a long period of time even though we know the person’s going to die. So medical assistance in dying (MAID) is my metaphor of this government.”

Trudeau ‘doesn’t trust business’

“Quebec’s powerful Desmarais family, which has close business and family ties to Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, and Paul Martin, and was connected to Trudeau senior, has been influencing Liberal thinking on China for generations,” Maher writes.

That is not the case for Justin Trudeau, however. People who have watched him closely told Maher that the prime minister’s inaction in the face of Chinese interference in Canadian democracy is definitely not the result of pressure from the pro-China business community.

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Says one former cabinet minister: “If you have three people sitting in the PMO (prime minister’s office) who just show up unannounced, one is a union leader, one is an environmentalist, and one is a Canadian CEO responsible for fifty thousand jobs, I don’t know who’s going to get in first, but I can tell you who’s going to get in last. It’s the business guy.”

“He doesn’t trust business, doesn’t take advice from business.”

Sophie was partly responsible for the embarrassing India trip ‘cringe factor’

Lots of ink had been spilled about Trudeau’s infamous India trip in 2018 which involved tacky costumes, a major snub by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a dinner invite to a convicted terrorist. Trudeau’s team saw two problems with the trip, they said.

The first one, the outfits, “were at least partly the responsibility of Sophie (Gregoire Trudeau), who was repeatedly photographed with her hands clasped, looking like a glamorous visiting yoga saint.” “There was the cringe factor, which she is definitely responsible for much of that,” said one insider. “But nobody voted for Sophie. It was up to Trudeau to deal with that.”

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The second one was the “view that Modi was going to try and f–k us,” said a member of Trudeau’s team. “But I would also say I don’t think anyone anticipated how aggressively he was going to try and f–k us.” Trudeau’s team was instead hoping for a “mild f–king.”

Trudeau might have saved his marriage if he had resigned

Trudeau’s union with wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau had “long been under strain” and the couple had even seen a marriage counsellor. But in July 2023, as Trudeau was organizing a cabinet shuffle, Sophie and he were negotiating a formal separation. They announced their separation publicly in August 2023.

Trudeau’s friends said the breakup was a “long time coming” and that Grégoire Trudeau “was finding it increasingly hard to be a prime minister’s wife.” There were also indications that she was preparing for a “post-Justin life” since 2022, when she incorporated a communications company called Under Your Light Communications.

“Trudeau might have saved his marriage if he had decided to step down in 2023 and let someone else take on Poilievre, but he did not want to do that,” reads the book. “His friends say he put the country ahead of his marriage.”

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The Trudeau family’s Jamaican vacations have to do with … diapers

In an interview with Maher, Trudeau revealed that his family’s long connection with the Prospect Estate, a luxurious estate in Jamaica where the prime minister has taken free vacations worth tens of thousands of dollars, happened by accident.

When he was an infant, Trudeau’s parents were planning to holiday at a hotel called the Jamaica Inn in Ochos Rios. When his mother Margaret called ahead to inquire if the hotel had a diaper service for her son, or if she needed to bring her own diapers, the hotel informed her it didn’t allow children at all.

Margaret feared that Pierre Trudeau, “who did not like vacations,” would cancel the whole trip, so she called the High Commission in Kingston for help finding another place. The diplomats suggested they stay at the nearby Prospect Estate, who was owned by Sir Harold Mitchell, a British businessman and former politician with investments in Canada. The families have been friendly ever since.

National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com

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