Margaret Trudeau

Margaret Joan Trudeau (née Sinclair; born September 10, 1948) is a Canadian activist and the mother of Justin Trudeau, the 23rd prime minister of Canada. She married Pierre Trudeau, the 15th prime minister of Canada, in 1971, three years after he became prime minister. They divorced in 1984, during his final months in office. She is also the mother of the journalist and author Alexandre "Sacha" Trudeau, and Michel Trudeau (now deceased) with Trudeau, and of son Kyle (born 1984), and daughter Alicia (born 1988), with Ottawa real-estate developer Fried Kemper. She is the first woman in Canadian history to have been both the wife and the mother of prime ministers. Trudeau is an advocate for people with bipolar disorder, with which she has been diagnosed.

Early life

Trudeau was born in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the daughter of Scottish-born James "Jimmy" Sinclair, a former Liberal member of the Parliament of Canada and Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and Doris Kathleen (née Bernard) Sinclair. Her grandmother, Rose Edith (née Ivens) Bernard, with whom she had an especially close relationship, lived in Roberts Creek, British Columbia, in later life, and was from Virden, Manitoba. Her grandfather, Thomas Kirkpatrick Bernard, was born in Makassar, Dutch Celebes, now in Sulawesi, Indonesia, and immigrated in 1906 at age 15 with his family to Penticton, British Columbia, eventually working as a payroll clerk for Canadian Pacific Railway.