Outside Rideau Cottage in Ottawa, a gust of wind blew away Canadian Prime MinisterJustin Trudeaus notes Monday.
The profile is a product of its time.
Diversity is our strength.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigned from office this week.ANDREJ IVANOV/AFP/Getty Images
(When asked why this was so, Trudeau responded, Because its 2015.)
There was a hint of Barack Obama in Trudeau who was also young, handsome, and progressive.
Now, it has similarly ended in pieces.
One of the key differences between Trudeau and Obama was that Obama was not born to the manor.
Ironically, it was Trudeaus eulogy for his father in 2000 that established him as a serious person.
I watched it kill my dad, Trudeau told me.
He just lost it.
He couldnt understand why God had taken his son away from him like that.
He began to cry and shake.
Je taime, Papa, he said and rested his forehead on his fathers flag-draped coffin.
His rise still wasnt inevitable but it seemed possible.
(Canadians are bilingual, but their politics can be just as shallow as their American neighbors.)
Deportations
It wasnt random, Trudeau told me.
He fit the bill, and it was a very nice counterpoint.
I saw it as the right kind of narrative, the right story to tell.
Canada did become a safe haven during the first Trump years.
Women in power became a fact of life, not a sop for votes.
But the soaring rhetoric and ideals only took Trudeau so far.
Just as damning, Trudeau was found not to practice what he preached.
Wilson-Raybould was Trudeaus highest ranking indigenous minister.
He apologized, but Wilson-Raybould still resigned from Trudeaus party.
Later that year, photos emerged of Trudeau in brownface as Aladdin at a 2001 Halloween party.
Trudeau spent it on a family vacation rather than participating in remembrance ceremonies.
Covid hit in 2020, and Trudeau again flashed the good and bad Justin.
He became the first world leader to isolate himself after his wife, Sophie, suffered with Covid.
From there, Trudeau suffered the slings and arrows of inflation and a violent reaction to his vaccine policies.
He required that Canadian truckers be vaccinated if they were going to drive from province to province.
Conservative activists saw an opening.
That was exactly wrong.
Freeland was the most prominent woman in Trudeaus government and had previously served as his deputy prime minister.
Sadly, like Biden before him, it is too late.
Now estranged from his wife, Trudeau is all alone.
But then something happened.
We left for the airport, and the motorcade detoured onto a dirt road.
I wondered if there was a crisis or a security threat.
And then Trudeau rolled down his window and dropped his ice cream cone in the dirt.
He didnt want to be seen littering on a Canadian highway.
Image had overtaken the actual man.
The sunny ways would soon be behind him.
