All about Maggie

>> Margaret Trudeau on being bipolar,
the Hillary Factor and her wonder years
with the late, great Pierre Elliott

FROM EUPHORIA TO ROCK BOTTOM TO TREATMENT:
Trudeau today

by MATTHEW HAYS

Margaret Trudeau has a calm, delicate voice on the other end of the line. Articulate, succinct, Trudeau has been on something of a mission of late, talking up mental health on the lecture circuit since publicly acknowledging her private battle with bipolar disorder.

Formerly known as manic depression, bipolar disorder leaves sufferers with extreme mood swings; patients either go from euphoric highs to rock bottom lows of depression. And what Margaret Trudeau wants you to know is, she got over it, and you can too.

“Only a third of people suffering will ever get treatment,” she tells me. “It’s because of the stigma and the lack of understanding. There can be a different life than the one they’re suffering through.”

Indeed, Trudeau has become such a powerful spokesperson for the cause that, after today’s interview, she’ll be off to do a photo shoot for the cover of Bipolar Hope Magazine. Trudeau says that for her, “It’s been a long journey, since my early 20s. I had always suffered from depression, and at times been at the heights of euphoria or mania. It wasn’t until about seven years ago that I was absolutely at rock bottom, due to the tragedies in my family. I had a doctor who was wonderful. The first thing he did was to make me accept the fact that I was bipolar.”

Strange days

Since coming out of the shadows concerning her own condition, Trudeau has suggested that it played a pivotal role in the breakdown of both of her marriages. Her first, of course, was to Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the late long-serving Liberal prime minister who brought Canada’s constitution home and once declared the War Measures Act—effectively suspending the civil rights of all Canadians—during the October Crisis of 1970. A man of extreme contradictions, he found his match in Maggie, a woman who became his bride in 1971 at the tender age of 22. Three sons later, their nuptials began to unravel, and Maggie was captured by the tabloid press rubbing more than elbows with the Rolling Stones while they were on tour. (After years of speculation about which member of the band Trudeau had an affair with, last month Ron Wood claimed it was him in his autobiography.)

Maggie Trudeau was always a brazen individualist, someone who wasn’t going to conform to anyone else’s rigid standards. No doubt there was pain in those years, but through it all something epic was achieved: she actually threatened to make Canadian politics seem interesting.

Looking back, Trudeau says those days were tough. “The depression robs you of your life. There were points when the light was out in my head. I couldn’t imagine how I’d get through the day.”

And when you look at pictures of a twenty-something Maggie, struggling to bring up children after being thrust into a heavily scrutinized public position, one can’t help but think of the parallels between her situation and that of the late Princess Di.

Initially, Mrs. Trudeau flinches at the comparison. “We had a very different circumstance though. I was very in love with my husband, and he with me. We had a wonderful relationship and we were always close. The different cultures that we came from, the different demands, were too great. I think hers was more of an arranged marriage, which made it more unbearable. She got thrust into such a frenzy of paparazzi that she really had to fight hard for her privacy. She almost had her privacy back when she died.”

Shunning the spotlight

Then, after a pause: “But I know that was the reason I walked out of 24 Sussex—it was not to lose Pierre, it was to leave the role of prime minister’s wife. All of the trappings of political life, I found it untenable to bring my children up in. I think in the end we were able to give them the best of both worlds, Pierre and I. We led different types of lives. Privacy is a great luxury in life, and when it’s robbed from you, the way it was robbed from Diana, no amount of wealth or fortune can make up for it.”

South of the border, there’s another famous former politician’s wife, Hillary Clinton, whose campaign Trudeau concedes she has been following. “I think Hillary’s a very strong candidate. I think it would be extraordinary if she became president. I sometimes question if she’s any different from the men politicians in a way. There has to be a completely new agenda in politics, where we are looking at peaceful solutions rather than considering war. Maybe that’s the kind of woman we need, someone who’s so strong she can play the game with the men. But for me, that’s not the solution for peace. I think we need to make a sharp turn, and I’m not sure she’s ready to make that sharp turn.”

Finally, I feel the need to address the long-standing rumours regarding Trudeau’s late husband. As the man who decriminalized homosexuality and who oversaw Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, many in the gay community have heralded Pierre Elliott Trudeau with paving the way for full legal equality for gays and lesbians. And with that came speculation that the late former PM was bisexual.

On that suggestion, Margaret laughs. “Not for a second, no. There may have been rumours, but that wasn’t the reality. He didn’t walk the same path as most people, but he was an incredibly just and logical man. He knew what equality and justice really meant—he would fight for anyone who wasn’t treated equally.”

Who else, Margaret suggests, could have brought together both former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, united in mourning at his funeral? “At one point,” she recalls, “I had Jimmy’s hand on one shoulder, Fidel’s hand on the other, comforting me through the grief.”

At that point in our conversation, Trudeau distances herself. As I’m about to ask another question, she intervenes. “This has become too private. I’m not offended, but I have boundaries. I do talk about my private life publicly, but only to a point.”

Margaret Trudeau will speak at the Congregation Shaar Hashomayim
(450 Kensington) this Sunday, Dec. 2, 11:30 a.m. Organized by the
Israel Cancer Research Fund and the Pink Lady Fund, all proceeds
will go to benefit breast cancer care at the Jewish General Hospital.
Ticket info: (514) 481-2723