When my grandfather, who I never met but family lore implores he had a wicked sense of humour, learned that Pierre Trudeau had two kids born on Christmas Day, he responded with, “Great, now he really does think that he is God.” My grandpa was mostly piss, vinegar and a very strong martini.

But Grandpa Schwieder did have a point. Pierre Trudeau is arguably Canada’s most well-known and polarizing politicians. Of all the ones I’ve wrote about thus far, he is the only one propped up by the same charisma and magnetism that has become a feature staple of our political neighbours in the US (barring the current conditions). Teddy Roosevelt was known for his energy and love of the office. John F. Kennedy raised the presidency to a level equivalent of celebrities and movie stars. For the most part, Canadian politics lacked the same prestige. But Pierre Trudeau had some of that charisma. Whether you agree with his politics or not, he had that charisma in spades. He is the only prime minster to have a “Mania” named after him - Trudeaumania of the 1960s, in which he became a beacon of hope for a younger generation.

Anyways…. I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to the basics.

Joseph Phillippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau (“That’s My Name Too!”) was born on October 18th, 1919, meaning he would be 99 years old if alive today. He was born in Outermont, a suburb of Montreal to Charles-Emile Trudeau and Grace Elliott, who was of Scottish decent. He was the middle child, having an older sister and younger brother.

The Trudeau family was a tight family unit and thanks to some beneficial business decisions by his father, they were a wealthy family at the time. Charley Trudeau sold a successful gas station to Imperial Oil when Pierre was in his young teens, ensuring financial comfort for the family. His father died when Pierre was only 15 years old, but Trudeau remained close to his mother for the rest of her life.

Trudeau was earning a law degree at the University of Montreal in the early 1940s, during the Second World War and was conscripted into the war effort. This was the Conscription Crisis of 1944, where Quebecois questioned the war effort. He cited in his biography that he, along with many of his peers, thought of the war “as a setting of the scores among the superpowers.” His experience with he conscription crisis led to his first brush with politics, as it caused him to campaign for the anti-conscription candidate Jean Drapeau in a Montreal by-election.

Pierre Trudeau became an intellectual, earning educations at Harvard University, the Institute d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and the London School of Economics, where he was enrolled for a doctorate but failed to complete it. So in the 1940s through to the 1960s, Trudeau was mostly known as an intellectual thinker. He worked as a law professor and was the editor of Cite Libre, a “dissident” publication which is credited with being the basis for the Quiet Revolution - basically an era of Quebecois politics in the 1960s and 70s, resulting in many socio-economic and cultural changes. He was known as being a left-wing radical thinker for the time, and was banned from entering the US for a time because of his left-wing thinking and a visit to Moscow in the middle of the Cold War.

Although he did have ties to the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, a pre-cursor to the current New Democratic Party, he solidified his position as a Liberal in the early 1960s and while he was a vocal critic of Lester Pearson’s Liberals, he joined the party in 1965 and was elected in the Mount Royal riding in that year’s election. Trudeau would hold the Mount Royal seat until his retirement in 1984.

Pierre Trudeau with Lester Pearson, the Liberal leaders of the 1960s.

When Pearson announced his retirement in 1968, Trudeau was the obvious choice as his successor, as Pearson himself advocated for it. He was officially sworn in as PM on April 20, 1968, and almost immediately dropped the writ, calling for an election on June 25 of the same year.

This was the start of Trudeaumania and a the tenure of the third-longest serving prime minister in Canadian history - behind William Lyon Mackenzie King and John A. Macdonald. Trudeau served a total of 15 years and 164 days.

Trudeau and his then-girlfriend Barbra Streisand in 1970, two years into his first term in office.

Trudeau holds a lot of “first” or “only” titles for the prime ministers office, including being the only prime minster to marry while in power. And the only prime minister to date a Hollywood actress, Barbra Streisand, while in power. And, after his split from Margaret Sinclair, the mother of his first three children and current PM Justin, the only prime minister to become a single parent while in office. Okay, all of these stem from romantic exploits, but maybe that was part of the charisma he was known for.

And why my grandpa quipped that Trudeau thought of himself as God. Of course, that is what I’m going to write about next week, because my grandpa would have wanted me to.

CP Photographer, Peter Bregg, shot this photo on the 1972 campaign trail and highlights this unique and elusive charisma.