Just Watch Me

by John English

  * Trudeau admitted that his principal secretary, Jack Austin, had convened a group of economists to give him independent advice. That advice was frequently critical of Finance, which regarded the group as a threat to its own position within government in a fashion similar to the attitude of External Affairs to Ivan Head. The Montreal Star (Jan. 28, 1975) observed that “to establish a panel of economic advisers without telling the Minister of Finance is as baffling as it is typical of the Prime Minister’s style. That sort of action does more than simply reflect Mr. Trudeau’s well-known personal insensitivity, the snub helps weaken the credibility of the Finance Minister, and thus, of the government.” The members of the group expressed many different opinions and were publicly identified as Albert Breton (University of Toronto), Thomas Wilson (University of Toronto), Carl Beigie (C.D. Howe Institute), Grant Reuber (University of Western Ontario), John Helliwell (University of British Columbia), and private sector economist Benjamin Gestrin of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Under pressure from Turner, Trudeau disbanded formal meetings of the group, although informal discussions continued.

  *The Gallup polls gave these monthly results:

  * Well-informed journalist Peter Foster wrote about the reaction of the oil patch to the creation of Petro-Canada: “The walls of the Petroleum Club resounded with indignation at the thought that a ‘window’ should be needed on their activities. The oil community’s more general regurgitation of its favourite philosophy, free enterprise good, government bad—intoned with about as much critical analysis as the ‘four legs good, two legs bad’ of the animals on George Orwell’s farm—was now given a particular and all-too-close example against which to rail.” Peter Foster, The Blue-Eyed Sheiks: The Canadian Oil Establishment (Toronto: Collins, 1979), 150.

  * Faced with weakness in his Quebec ranks in the fall of 1976, Trudeau asked Jim Coutts to recruit Brian Mulroney, who had recently lost the Conservative leadership contest to Joe Clark. Trudeau, who believed that Mulroney was the most dangerous candidate from the Liberal point of view, had called him after his loss to say that he had performed well at the convention and that he thought the Conservatives had made a decision that might actually help him. Coutts, a friend of Mulroney, offered him a Cabinet position and a seat in Montreal, if he would join the Liberals. Mulroney, whose leadership bid had left him with considerable debts, told Coutts that he would remain with the Iron Ore Company of Canada, where he was now president. He also said that he remained a Progressive Conservative, although Trudeau’s offer was “a lot more generous than [he] had received from [his] own party.” Brian Mulroney, Memoirs 1939–1993 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2007), 173, 187. Jim Coutts confirmed this story in a conversation with me.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BEYOND REASON

  The marriage of Pierre and Margaret Trudeau began to disintegrate after the 1974 election, and following the provincial vote in Quebec two years later, it dissolved. Throughout the marriage, public and private had intertwined, sometimes with elegance and effectiveness, but at other moments with awkwardness and embarrassment. The private lives of prime ministers had been shrouded in Canada’s past—Laurier’s love for Émilie Lavergne, Bennett’s frustrated romance with Hazel Colville, King’s spiritualist adventures with his married neighbour Joan Patteson, and St. Laurent’s depression—and none of these reached the public spotlight to the degree of Margaret and Pierre’s estrangement. The new journalism of the seventies, combined with the Trudeaus’ celebrity, placed the breakdown of their private relationship on the front pages of newspapers around the world. In 1979 it inspired a very good play, Maggie and Pierre, which begins with their first encounter in Tahiti, when Margaret tells Pierre that she has no need to read about Bacchanalian rituals in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: she has been there.

  Pierre: That sounds like a long journey. How much farther do you want to go?

  Maggie: Forever. And you? … I want to be world renowned, to shape destiny, to be deliriously happy. You might say, I want it all.

  Pierre: I want to be world renowned, to shape destiny, to be deliriously happy. You might say, I want it all.

  Linda Griffiths, the author and the first actor of the play, wrote at the time that “Maggie and Pierre” were “epic characters,” heroes in that they contain “all the elements of humanity, magnified.” In justifying the play about two living people whose marriage disintegrated, she explained: “Their story has already been shared by the whole country, and actually by a lot of the world as well.” Moreover, “Things are going too fast to have to wait for death to tell the story.” But if their dreams seemed so much alike at the beginning, it was their differences that eventually drew them apart. “Curiosity,” Griffiths wrote much later, led Pierre to love a young woman who “seemed his antithesis … the kind of person who operated entirely on her instincts and passions, whose charm was an openness as different from his own as could be.” Trudeau was at his best when he took a chance on love; it brought the risks whose excitement drove his life. For Trudeau, public life was a stage, and his insatiable curiosity made him the most interested observer of all the players.1

  Margaret told her side of the story in her books Beyond Reason and Consequences, which chronicled the breakdown of the relationship in great detail. As evidence of the troubles began to seep out, Trudeau maintained an increasingly dignified silence, responding to reporters who asked him about the state of his marriage with a sharp retort: “Tell me about yours.” When the press hammered Margaret regularly for her riotous party life, he simply said, “She’s a good woman.” In his memoirs he maintained discretion while admitting some responsibility. He wrote about the way he tried to separate his private life from his political activities, allowing that he had doubts about Margaret’s active participation in the 1974 election campaign. Despite these efforts, “some of the political life may have spilled over into the family life.” He recognized that the blurring might have been unavoidable “because one of the problems of being in politics is that it is not always a good life for the spouse. The man or the woman in it is fighting all the time, with the excitement that goes with the active involvement in any contest; but the one who stays back home with the kids is stuck on the sidelines just hearing about the nasty aspects of it all, and not enjoying the fight. In my case, what’s more, I was a neophyte at both politics and family life at the same time. I married late in life, our three boys—Justin, Sacha, and Michel—arrived fairly quickly, and I was learning about marriage and parenthood at the same time as I was learning about the workings of politics. So perhaps it was a little too much for me and, regrettably, I didn’t succeed that well.” He chose to say no more, except that the five years after the 1974 election were “turbulent” and personally “difficult” times.2

  Did those personal difficulties affect Trudeau’s judgment and, therefore, Canada’s political life? Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall conclude that they did, because Trudeau “became increasingly disengaged as prime minister, appearing to drift away from his task, but then re-engaging abruptly when issues could not be ignored. During his third term in office—when he commanded a secure majority in the House of Commons and ought to have been at the peak of his form as leader—he was too disturbed to devote his full concentration to the challenges of his job, just at the point when his government fell victim to one crisis after another.” McCall, a superb and respected journalist, tapped into the gossip of the press club, the Ottawa summer parties, and the House of Commons lobbies, where Margaret’s troubles were whispered about and debated. A 1979 compilation of the best newspaper articles of “the Trudeau decade” observed that the marriage and, especially, its conflicts dominated press coverage in the mid-seventies, although the editors note, accurately, that many anglophone journalists showed much less discretion and paid much more attention than their francophone counterparts. Trudeau’s personal troubles had a definite impact on his political life.

  Coverage of these troubles began
on September 17, 1974, when Margaret, pale and visibly weary, emerged from Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital and told journalists that she was suffering “severe emotional stress,” a condition the prime minister’s press office had carefully concealed. Margaret’s photograph and comments appeared on the front pages of most Canadian and many international newspapers, and rumours quickly spread that she was a victim of post-partum depression. The first accounts were not sensational, although several of the editorial pages nervously justified their coverage because of Margaret’s key role in the previous election. The Canadian Annual Review of Politics and Public Affairs for 1974, however, followed Canadian tradition and ignored the issue entirely.3

  Margaret’s distress after his most satisfying political victory stunned Trudeau. She had initially retreated to her “freedom room” in 24 Sussex, but then she took off without a passport on a “freedom trip” to Paris, where she fruitlessly searched for her former lover Yves Lewis before fleeing to Greece. There she backpacked and spent nights in a sleeping bag on Crete. On her return home, she immediately went off to New York to watch a celebrity tennis tournament and came under the spell of Senator Edward Kennedy, who enthralled her completely. Once back in Ottawa, she began to drink heavily. A troubled Pierre demanded to know if she had been unfaithful. Angry, she took a kitchen knife, admitted she had “fallen in love,” and threatened suicide. “You’re sick,” he snapped, turning away in disgust. It was “all [Pierre] said at last.” Margaret was indeed sick. A hospital stay followed, then a controversial trip to Japan with her sisters, paid for by a Hong Kong shipping magnate, and on October 27 a nationally televised interview on the CTV network. Carole Taylor, a skilled interviewer and future politician, drew Margaret out as the interview proceeded.

  Taylor: Are you a flower child at heart?

  Trudeau: Oh more than at heart, in my soul. That’s my generation. That’s what I blossomed in.

  Taylor: Do you find it something that you have to grow out of or is it something that is compatible with this kind of life?

  Trudeau: I’d really hate to grow out of what I—when I call myself a flower child, I think of myself as someone who cares and who doesn’t care about the unimportant things, doesn’t put too much value on money and social status—although how can I say that when I’m the Prime Minister’s wife, except that I, you know, didn’t marry my husband to be the Prime Minister’s wife. I long for the day when we will no longer be, I no longer will be the PM’s wife, when I can just be Pierre’s wife.

  The answer abounded with contradictions and confusion, but as Margaret later noted, many Canadians were charmed by the interview, though others were appalled or intrigued, particularly journalists in English Canada and abroad.4

  The critics noticed the flower child’s jetsetting ways: the hotel Georges V in Paris; winters in the Caribbean; weekends in New York; couturier fashion from Holt Renfrew; and trips on private jets with her close friend Queen Alia of Jordan, who gave her expensive cameras as she embarked on a new career as a photographer. Earlier commentators claimed that the exceedingly private Pierre did not share his concerns with others, which is true in the case of his political colleagues. Marc Lalonde can recall only one remark Trudeau made about his marriage breakdown, one very similar to the comment he made in his memoirs. However, he turned to his traditional confidants: his priests and his close female friends. Nancy Pitfield, Michael Pitfield’s new wife, selected some “fantastic clothes” for Margaret at the expensive and exclusive Creeds in Toronto, and Wendy Porteous, the wife of Trudeau’s assistant Tim Porteous, joined Margaret for a “giggly, happy drive down to Montreal” before she entered the hospital. Pierre’s old friend Carroll Guérin was surprised to receive a phone call from Trudeau that fall asking her if he and Margaret could come to see her on the weekend. Margaret had just left the hospital when she and Pierre arrived by helicopter at the quietly elegant former seigneury at Mont-Saint-Hilaire, where Carroll lived. On the grounds, as Margaret rested, Pierre told Carroll: “I don’t understand. I don’t know what to do.” And he didn’t.5

  In 1975, as his political popularity waned, Trudeau tried to take Margaret away from the “old grey mansion” at 24 Sussex, which had become a “prison” for her. They spent more time at Harrington Lake, visited cottages on other weekends, took diversions from official tours, and sometimes the official documents were set aside. Once on a beach, with the briefcase far away, a bored Pierre asked Margaret, “What are you reading?” She passed the book to him and said, “You might like it.” He didn’t put it down until he finished the last page: Erica Jong’s bestselling Fear of Flying, a feminist and, to some, pornographic classic about a brilliant woman in an unfulfilled marriage who flees her husband and has anonymous sex. Trudeau’s thoughts remain a mystery, but they may be surmised.

  Margaret’s rebellion, which we now know was the product of bipolar depression, lapsed in 1975 because she became pregnant once again in early winter. Although she accompanied Trudeau on the whirlwind of trips he undertook that year, she shunned the official functions, and on the rare occasions when she attended political gatherings, she departed early.* When, for example, the Canadian Embassy in Copenhagen worked out a detailed itinerary for her during Trudeau’s meeting with Danish officials in May, her assistant replied politely but curtly: “Mrs. Trudeau thanks you for your suggestions for a program for her, which she found quite interesting. However, given her present state of health, she would prefer to have no program and to be free to rest and perhaps to do some shopping.”6 Trudeau, who was becoming increasingly angry about Margaret’s expenditures, probably shuddered when he read her alternatives.

  And yet they visibly loved each other when they were together. Shortly after the birth of Michel in October 1975, Trudeau planned an official visit to Latin America early in the new year, including stops in Mexico, Cuba, and Latin America. The trip was badly timed from a political point of view, and given his heavy and much criticized travel schedule of the previous months, even his own office opposed it. Although the Americans had begun to break down their ideological barriers with Cuba, as Nixon had earlier with his policy of détente with the Soviets and recognition of China, the Cubans had responded poorly to these tentative approaches. Then, when Cuba expanded its intervention in the Angolan civil war in November, the United States recoiled and expected Canada to follow suit. Trudeau, perhaps because of the strains in his personal life but more likely because of his own interest in Cuba and Latin America, decided to go ahead with the trip anyhow. This visit to the hemisphere’s most illustrious communist dictator troubled not only the American leadership but also the Canadian business community, which was already enraged by Trudeau’s year-end comments about the precarious future of capitalism. To lessen the damage, External Affairs issued a statement condemning the Angolan intervention just before the prime minister arrived in Havana on January 26. Castro, many of his ministers, and tens of thousands of Cubans all turned out to greet Pierre, Margaret, and Michel at the airport. Castro immediately charmed his visitors with “romantic and flowery English” and his exuberant embrace of the Trudeau baby, whom he dubbed “Miche.” He even had an official badge made for him, reading “Miche Trudeau, V.I.P., Official visitor of the Canadian delegation.”7

  In a history of Trudeau’s “three nights in Havana,” historian Robert Wright argues that the warmth of the Cuban sun, the sambas, Castro’s flirtatious Latin charm, the flamboyant generosity of Cuban hospitality, and the gaiety of the people made Margaret and Pierre leave their arguments behind and love each other once again. Canadian ambassador Jim Hyndman, who accompanied the Trudeaus throughout the trip, concluded that Pierre “was still in love with” Margaret. The visual record of their days together confirms his view, with Margaret radiant and exuberant and Pierre solicitous and physically near. Castro’s outrageous flirting charmed them both: he surprised them late one evening when, in his “silken English,” he told Margaret: “You know my eyes are not very strong, so every day to make th
em stronger I force myself to look at the sun. I find it very hard. But do you know what I find harder? That is to look into the blue of your eyes.”8 Not surprisingly, Margaret, who had found official and political life formalistic and tedious, thought Cuba (and Castro) thoroughly captivating, so unlike the grey, socialist, workers’ state she had expected. She and Pierre had ceased to discuss Canadian politics, but in Cuba she suddenly “felt a resurgence of political consciousness.” Here was “the answer to Utopia,” she thought. “If this is revolution, it is truly marvellous.”9

  Trudeau, who did not regard Cuba as Utopia but did respect its health care and social systems, initially argued with Castro about Cuban participation in the Angolan civil war. Before long, however, these two Jesuit-educated, highly physical, flirtatious, and charismatic leaders engaged with each other emotionally and intellectually. Castro proposed that, on their last night on the island, he spirit his guests away from officials and the press for an unforgettable stay on Cayo Largo, a small key where they would share a two-bedroom bungalow and a small shed. Margaret begged Trudeau to let her accompany him, a request that Ivan Head, whom Margaret described as “pompous and somewhat self-important,” promptly opposed. Enthralled with Margaret, Castro would not hear of her absence, and Pierre finally agreed she could go. It was, Margaret later wrote, “a memorable evening …” for which “lights had been strung up in garlands around the table, one long trestle table with benches, at which we all sat down to eat together, everyone from our nanny to the drivers.” Castro and Trudeau spoke Spanish, but the Cuban graciously switched to English when a topic arose that he thought would interest Margaret. On that final evening in Cuba, protocol vanished in a haze of “loud music, good food, bright colors” as they all danced late into the night. When they had to say their farewells next day, Margaret was overcome by joyful tears. Trudeau commented wryly to his wife: “I’m glad you’re still with me. I thought you would ask for asylum.”10