SPOTLIGHT ON SOPHIE
Gregoire-Trudeau breaks tradition as a very visible prime minister’s wife.
Sheila Martin famously hated her husband’s job at the PMO.
Laureen Harper stuck for much of her early time at 24 Sussex Drive to charity appearances and the occasional cat-themed film festival.
But just four weeks after her husband took office, it is becoming clear Sophie GregoireTrudeau will take an unusually active hold on the often staid role of prime ministerial spouse.
Her high profile has already brought criticism, after she replaced the prime ministerial chef, was featured in unauthorized jewelry marketing, and, it emerged this week, was granted the aid of two taxpayer-funded nannies.
Even as the United States equips its first ladies with a budget, duties and large staff, Canada has treated prime ministerial spouses much the same as the spouse of any other MP — and not even as well as the spouse of the Governor General.
“Our model follows the British model and normally the spouse is not assigned specific or official duties,” said Robert Collette, Canada’s former chief of protocol, writing in an email to the National Post.
Some, such as Mila Mulroney, parlayed the role into charitable patronages and an office of paid staff. Others remain near invisible.
“There’s no first lady in Canada,” said Laureen Harper in a 2013 interview, adding that a prime minister’s wife “can have a big role, a small role, whatever.”
Gregoire-Trudeau remained abroad with her husband on Tuesday, in an extended trip that saw her hit the red carpet at the Commonwealth Leaders’ Summit in Malta, meet Queen Elizabeth II in a Canadian-designed gown and lay flowers at Paris’ Bataclan concert hall, site of the worst violence in the terrorist attacks that struck the French capital on Nov. 13.
At home in Ottawa, meanwhile, the Trudeaus faced down criticism Tuesday for a pair of taxpayer-funded nannies who started work just two weeks after the federal election. The two employees are officially known as “Special Assistant at the Prime Minister’s residence,” and are to be paid between $15 and $20 an hour during the day and from $11 to $13 on the night shift.
Kate Purchase, Trudeau’s director of communications, said in a statement that the prime minister employs two household employees as “secondary caregivers” who also perform “other duties around the house.”
Purchase did not specify what those other duties entail, but said similar arrangements have existed for Trudeau’s predecessors.
During Trudeau’s early years as Papineau MP, and even after he became Liberal leader in April, 2013, child care was apparently kept within the family.
“I don’t have a nanny but both grandmothers are helping out,” said Gregoire-Trudeau in a 2013 interview with a parenting blog.
As recently as October, the Globe and Mail was reporting that the couple “doesn’t keep a nanny.”
As critics have noted, the hires come only months after Justin Trudeau lambasted the Universal Childcare Benefits as unfairly benefiting “wealthy families like his.”
The new hires fall under the Official Residences Act, which allows prime ministers and leaders of the opposition to retain chefs, driver, kitchen workers and other household support staff.
The new employees came on the “recommendation of the Prime Minister,” according to Privy Council documents, but insiders have said that GregoireTrudeau has played an active role before in deciding the composition of household staff.