LIBERAL LEADER TRUDEAU’S MANY RIDES
List begins with an El Camino to many cars as PM, Dale Edward Johnson writes.
When Liberal leader Justin Trudeau was elected prime minister in 2015, he had to give up driving. For security reasons, prime ministers are not allowed to drive, but are chauffeured.
This has been the case for decades.
More than 30 years ago, the Prime Minister’s Protection Detail (PMPD), part of the RCMP, was established to provide 24-hour security to the prime minister and his or her family. This also includes looking after transportation for the PM.
When the prime minister travels across Canada or to other countries, the PMPD works with local security agencies to arrange vehicles.
For example, when Trudeau visited Regina in January 2017, his motorcade included Chevrolet Suburbans, a Dodge Caravan and a Cadillac.
Unlike some heads of state — the U.S. president, for example — the prime minister does not have a special limousine.
“There are several models of various years and they are all used on a rotational basis. Primarily, we make use of Chevrolet Suburbans, but we also have other options. The Prime Minister has no specific model that he uses more frequently than others,” according to Christine L’hébreux with Media Relations Services at RCMP National Division in Ottawa.
“The Prime Minister’s fleet has several limousines. There have been Cadillacs, Buicks, Suburbans and others. It is not for the Prime Minister to decide which vehicle will be used. This is always the decision of the Prime Minister’s Protective Detail,” L’hébreux says.
The vehicles are modified, but for security reasons the extent and the nature of those changes are not public. (The U.S president’s limousine, a heavily modified Cadillac, includes armour, bulletproof glass, run-flat tires and sealing against biochemical attacks.)
For security reasons the PMPD won’t say how many kilometres vehicles in the PM’S fleet go, or how many years old they are before they’re replaced.
“Vehicles in the fleet are refreshed based on mileage and operational efficiency,” L’hébreux says.
But don’t go looking for a deal on a used prime minister’s vehicle.
“Prime Minister limousines are never sold. After being used for operations, they are used for training purposes and then they are destroyed,” she explains.
Before he became prime minister, Justin Trudeau did lots of driving.
The first car he drove was a Chevrolet El Camino, owned by his mother’s second husband, Fried Kemper.
In his book “Common Ground” Trudeau says the El Camino
“was the first car I ever drove, at fifteen, on the farm roads near the cottage.”
He also writes that when he was about 18 years old, he and his two younger brothers “drove our father’s Volvo down to our mother’s cottage at Newboro Lake, with me at the wheel.”
He later paid $5,000 for a used 1972 gold Mercedes-benz 280
SE.
He moved to Vancouver, where he studied and was a teacher. Living on the West Coast meant plenty of cross-country drives back home to Montreal. Trudeau writes that he “had driven a Volkswagen Jetta TDI for some years, a car that had faithfully carried me back and forth between Vancouver and Montreal when I was living in B.C.” He also drove his late brother Michel’s “old Ford Bronco, which had sentimental value but not much else going for it.”
On his wedding day, he and his bride, Sophie, left the church in Montreal in a 1960 Mercedes-benz 300 SL that his father owned, and that he inherited.
He later had a Lexus Hybrid and an Audi allroad quattro. Later still he had a 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid.
In the summer of 2013, Trudeau drove an RV to the West Coast, “showing my kids British Columbia and connecting with the communities along the way.”
And when he announced his bid for the leadership of the Liberal Party, Trudeau used a driving analogy, saying, “So I’m here to ask for your help, because this road will be one long, Canadian highway. We will have ups and downs. Breathtaking vistas and a few boring stretches. And with winter coming, icy patches.”