JUSTIN TRUDEAU: How B.C. shaped his life
Canada’s PM-designate has deep political family roots in North Vancouver, came of age at UBC, and taught school in Vancouver.
W hen Britt Frandsen met Justin Trudeau, she was in that awkward 1990s angry teen goth phase, with the hallmark black clothes, black eyes, black hair and white face. It had won her admonishments from teachers who told the 13-yearold to lay off the heavy makeup and be less “distracting.”
But from the moment “Mr. Trudeau” entered her Grade 7 French class at Pitt River Middle School in Port Coquitlam as a student teacher, he offered no judgment.
I’m not sure if love of campaigning has any kind of genetic component, but if it does, I can trace my passion for it straight back to grandpa. It’s his style that I’ ve adopted as my own.
JUSTIN PIERRE JAMES TRUDEAU
“He totally accepted me as I was. I was just a normal person to him,” Frandsen said.
“I was still a good kid, did well in school, but it was just teen rebellion. Justin was just like, great, you’re just ex press ing yourself. He was the first teacher who never made it an issue.”
To someone whose father had spearheaded the creation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the eldest son of Pierre Elliot Trudeau — and now prime minister-designate — would not have thought Frandsen had any less right to dress in black and white than a woman has the right to wear a niqab.
But the young Trudeau wasn’t above making an observation to Frandsen later in her yearbook that “when you are older, you’re going to look back at this book and think to yourself I can’t believe I used to like Marilyn Manson.”
Now a mother living in Edmonton, Frandsen laughs heartily. “Yeah, he’s right.”
There is no question that Justin Trudeau learned many political and history lessons from his father, Pierre. What eldest son could not if his father was a prime minister embroiled in issues of national importance, such as Quebec’s place in Canada and the October Crisis, the charter, national energy and economic policies, establishing relations with China, staying in NATO and witnessing détente?
Justin grew up steeped in politics, living at 24 Sussex Drive and Stornoway, and accompanying his father around the world. He met kings and princesses and prime ministers and leaders, all the while at the knee of one of Canada’s most enduring modern politicians.
Much of Justin Trudeau’s story has already been framed: The first child to be born to a prime minister in office since John A. Macdonald’s youngest daughter in 1869. The eldest of three sons raised in a tumultuous marriage between Pierre and his West Coast bride, Margaret Sinclair. The loss of his brother Michel in an avalanche in 1998 and his political coming-of-age eulogy at his father’s funeral in 2000. His mother’s eventual diagnosis of bipolar disorder and his unconditional support and love for her.
Less is known about his deep family roots in British Columbia, his formative young adult years
What people outside of a very narrow group of family and friends haven’t appreciated is how close Justin has been to his mother and to his mother’s (B.C.) family.
JACK AUSTIN
FORMER AIDE TO PIERRE TRUDEAU
as a student, teacher, snowboard instructor and nightclub bouncer, and the influence they have on his views and outlook.
What emerges when you talk to friends, students, political associates and family contacts who knew him in B.C. is a picture of a passionate young man emerging from under his father’s influence back east.
Justin may have picked up a lot of his intellect and debating skills from Pierre. But it is his mother’s side of the family, the Sinclairs of B.C., headed by his grandfather, Jimmy Sinclair, a legendary West Coast Scottish-Canadian politician, who imbued him with his passion, creativity and sensitivity.
And while in B.C., Justin burnished those talents as a student, teacher, instructor and eventually family spokesman through the losses of his brother and father.
“What people outside of a very nar row group of fam ily and friends haven’t appreciated is how close Justin has been to his mother and to his mother’s family,” said Jack Austin, a former Liberal senator and chief of staff to Pierre.
“Pierre’s personality dominated the interest. Pierre was the centre of a great excitement, intellectual interest, all of which was deserved, but it cast a shadow on the Sinclair connection.”
Justin and broth ers Sacha and Michel often spent time with their grandparents in North Vancouver while Margaret and Pierre travelled. By that time Sinclair had retired from 18 years as an MP, including minister of fisheries in Louis St. Laurent’s Liberal government. If Pierre approached pol itics in tel lec tual ly, Sin clair, a Rhodes Scholar, took a more passionate approach. Described by friends and colleagues as a “retail politician,” he rolled up his sleeves and fought personally for every vote. That is the side that Justin inherited.
Austin believes Justin’s passion flows from his mother, Margaret, and from her father.
“Nobody wrote Jimmy Sinclair’s speeches. They were coming from the heart,” Austin said. “And you see that in Margaret and in some of the other daughters. Justin is the same. In that way, he reminds me of Jimmy.”
Someone in North Vancouver, where Sinclair last held office in 1958, thought that too. When Justin held his last rally before Monday’s election he was nearly brought to tears by an old Sinclair campaign poster hoisted over the heads of people.
“I’m not sure if love of campaigning has any kind of genetic component, but if it does, I can trace my passion for it straight back to grandpa,” Justin told the crowd of 3,000. “It’s his style that I’ve adopted as my own.”
When Justin attended his first question period in 2013 after becoming leader of the Liberal party, he wore his Sinclair tartan tie as a sign of family respect.
• Sean Smillie first met Justin in 1997 on the slopes of Whistler Blackcomb. Smillie headed up a new youth snowboarding school called Ride Tribe and needed smart, young instructors. Justin made a spectacular entrance.
“He snowboarded down wearing a fireman’s jacket, not a regular ski jacket,” Smillie recalled. “It was a big black fireman’s jacket with yellow stripes on it and he was riding a really extra long snowboard that was built for speed, a bit of an old-school board you’d find in Europe.”
Easygoing and engaging, Justin hit it off both with Smillie and his students. He was attending the University of B.C. on a 12-month education program that would lead to teaching credentials.
On weekends, Justin drove to Whistler in a dilapidated old beige Mercedes with holes in the floor boards. He crashed on Smillie’s couch, taught during the day and worked as a doorman at the Rogue Wolf nightclub in the evenings.
“He was an incredibly engaging person. This program we taught was for teenagers whose parents would drop them off for a week, and they are way too cool to admit that they are there,” Smillie said. “Justin was the guy who would throw snowballs at the kids and get them into trouble by throwing snowballs at the tourists.”
Smillie said he and the other four in struct ors be came fast friends with Justin. “He was very carefree, a bit reckless and very, very fast,” he said.
But not so fast that he could always escape having to buy a round of beer as a penalty for being the last to race from the top of Whistler to the bottom.
Working in Whistler as a nightclub doorman also offered Justin lessons in diplomacy. Tall and ath let ic, but lack ing the muscles and frame of a bouncer, he learned how to defuse trouble without having to call in the heavies.
In his 2014 bestseller autobiography Common Ground, Justin, a proficient boxer, related how he wanted to avoid fights.
“Any time a punch was thrown my way, it meant I had screwed up by failing to resolve the situa tion firm ly but peace ably,” he wrote. “The lessons learned at the Rogue Wolf were broad enough to have some practical applications in politics.”
What drew Justin back to B.C. may have been his passion for snowboarding, but it was also his desire to get away, temporarily, from the milieu of Montreal.
“Why did he come out here? For family reasons. But also, in my view, he saw British Columbia as a way of distinguishing himself from the very strong Quebec ethic,” said Austin. “Not to leave the Quebec eth ic in which he was brought up, but to add to it. To be somebody different from his Trudeau background, the strong focus on Quebec and Quebec nationalism, Liberalism and the whole political history of his father.”
Living in B.C. gave Justin a much different view of Canada than his Ottawa and Montreal up bring ings. Austin be lieves those qualities will serve him well in his new job.
“I think he understands the makeup of B.C. society, which is so different from the societies of the Laurentian consensus. He lived it,” Austin said. “He interacted with the physical culture of British Columbia, its outlook towards Asia and its export economy and the general physical quality of life here, which appeals to him.”
• Justin is also tied inextricably to B.C. in a more sobering way. He was teaching as a substitute at Pinetree Secondary School in Coquitlam in November 1998 when he learned his broth er Michel had been killed in an avalanche near Rossland.
As the fam ily spokes man, grieving brother and comforter to his devastated parents, Justin was thrust into new roles. He took on promoting avalanche safety, raising funds and awareness for the Canadian Avalanche Association.
When Pierre died less than two years later, Justin was still teaching in B.C. It is his eloquent, soulful eulogy that perhaps gave him and others pause to think about whether he should return to Montreal and enter politics.
“I think that his father’s death and the funeral changed his own perception,” Austin offered. “It raised speculation for the first time, with people saying this person can actually project feelings, this person can actually deliver an emotional kick, so different from his father in that way.”
• After graduating from UBC in early 1998, Justin spent his first year as a student teacher at Pitt River Middle. He immediately showed an ability to connect with students, using the same talents he displayed as a snowboard instructor at Whistler to draw out students.
“We liked him. He was a very char is matic and en gaging teacher,” said Caitlin Langford, a Pitt River student. “There were certain things we couldn’t relate to, such as when his Mercedes was in the shop. For us it was ‘poor you.’ ”
She laughed when told that the old Mercedes was a constant mech an ic al prob lem for the prime minister-designate.
Trudeau went on to teach French, math, drama, creative writing and law at West Point Grey Academy, a private school on Vancouver’s west side. On occasion he brought his drama class down to the Carousel Theatre on Granville Island.
“He seemed to have an easy rapport with his students and the students were happily discussing the plays with him,” said Elizabeth Ball, who owned the theatre.
“They did what he asked and he joked easily with both boys and girls about certain lines in Shakespeare. He really seemed to like being in the theatre. He was very polite and made sure the kids were, too.”
Justin stayed at West Point Grey Academy for nearly three years, then taught at several Metro Vancouver schools. Since the election, some of his students at many of the schools have relayed stories on social media.
Justin left West Point Grey Academy in part over a dispute over dress code and values.
He had encouraged a student who had been reprimanded for wearing a sloppy tie to write an article for the school newspaper noting that some girls were also getting away with wearing uniform skirts a tad higher over the knee than allowed. The conservative administration was not happy. They reacted by reprimanding the student and shutting down the newspaper.
Although he still likes and supports the academy, the incident also helped form some of Justin’s opinions about education and the need for an equitable admissions system.
On the day of the 9-11 attacks, Jus tin was teach ing French at Vancouver’s Sir Win ston Churchill Secondary. He suspended lessons for the day and instead engaged his Grade 9 and 10 students in a discussion about the potential outcomes from such terrorism.
In his auto biog raphy, Justin described the attack as “the most memorable and powerful moment in my teaching career.” Students worried that this was the beginning of World War III. Some worried about how this would change them. In words that would become prescient in the Oct. 19 election, Justin talked about the need for balance.
“We talked about terrorism and the need to fight it, along with the need to ensure that vigilance didn’t become a form of paranoia directed at all Muslims.”
Before he left West Point Grey for Churchill, Justin experienced one of those “coming-of-age” events between fathers and sons. A year before he died, Pierre visited Justin at the school. As they went to leave, the two Trudeaus heard a girl call after them, “Mr. Trudeau?”
Justin thought the girl, whose immigrant parents likely benefited from his father’s immigration policies, wanted to talk to his father. He’d witnessed such scenes many times.
Instead, she told Justin she’d be late for his French class.
“To my delight (Pierre) was wearing a broad smile,” Justin recounted. “He had taken fatherly pride in seeing his son maintaining our family’s legacy of service to Canada, this time as a teacher of young people.”
• Britt Frandsen has her own coming-of-age story to tell about Justin Trudeau.
In that first year as a student teach er at Pitt River Mid dle he had brought that charisma, charm and acceptance. It wasn’t hard for him to relate to his students, she said, and they genuinely loved him and his style.
One day the students were telling ribald jokes, as young teens can sometimes do. Frandsen said they prodded Justin mercilessly to offer up one of his own. He hesitated several times, but eventually offered up a Nantucket joke. Such as “there once was a man from Nantucket, who …” The students laughed uproariously.
The next day Trudeau showed up in class with his head bowed and a sombre look on his face.
“I’ve made a horrible mistake. I shouldn’t have told you that joke,” Frandsen said he told them. “It was very inappropriate and I have turned myself in to the principal.”
“He was so genuinely upset about it and he felt so guilty, but to the rest of us it was ‘ oh well, we’ve already forgotten about it,’ ” she said.
That incident, Frandsen said, is why she believes Trudeau will be a good prime minister.
“I think it kind of shows what he is going to be like as prime minister. I think it is OK to screw up, and I think he will make mistakes. But I think he’s going to take responsibility, and he will be as honest as they come.”