Book gives new insight into Trudeau
Arrogant, shy, charming, rude, kind, thoughtless — all the contradictory traits of Canada’s best-known 20th century prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, show up in this collection of anecdotes by friends and colleagues, edited by Nancy Southam.
A close friend and fellow spiritual seeker, Southam has covered more that 150 reminiscences from Canada and around the world, from journalists, bodyguards, world leaders, girlfriends, canoeing buddies and prime ministerial staff.
While all have their own unique take on Trudeau, whose death in 2000 ignited a brief burst of Trudeamania once again, the consensus is that his great love in life were his children (he never got over the untimely death in an avalanche of his youngest son Michel), that he was a noted tightwad, and that as a politician he was one of a kind.
To economist John Kenneth Galbraith, he was “perhaps the most delightful person I ever met in the world of politics.”
To actor Christopher Plummer: “What Glen Gould was to Bach, Trudeau was to Canada.”
While he could be abrasive and hostile to people who disagreed with him (he once slugged a man who cursed him in B.C.), to others he was one of the kindest of men. While he could be witty and had a keenly developed sense of irony, to journalists like Jim Ferrabee, who covered him for 14 years, “he had very little sense of humor about himself or anyone else.”
Love him or hate him, Trudeau was a one-off, and Southam’s book shows him in all his vaunted complexity.
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