Who is Justin Trudeau?
Justin Trudeau was born on 25th December 1971. He is the 23rd prime minister of Canada and got elected in November 2015. Justin has been a leader of the Liberal Party since April 2013. He is the first social media generation, prime minister.
Most importantly, Justin is the second-youngest prime minister in Canadian history after Joe Clark. He is the first, second-generation prime minister, taking over the post after his father, Pierre Trudeau.
Personal life of Justin Trudeau
Justin Trudeau was born on Christmas Day 1971 at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. He is also the second child in history to be born to a prime minister currently in office. The first child was John A. Macdonald’s daughter Margaret Mary Theodora Macdonald (8th February 1869 - 28th January 1933). His younger brothers Alexandre (Sacha) (born 25th December 1973) and Michel (2nd October 1975 – 13th November 1998) were the third and fourth.
Justin is of Scottish and French Canadian descent. His grandfather Scottish-born James Sinclair served as Minister of Fisheries in the cabinet of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent.
Justin’s maternal great-grandfather Thomas Bernard was born in Makassar, Indonesia. He later immigrated to Penticton, British Columbia, in 1906 at age 15 with his family.
Justin met his wife Sophie Grégoire when they were both children growing up in Montreal. She was a classmate and a childhood friend of his youngest brother Michel. They reconnected again as adults in June 2003. Sophie was a Quebec television personality who was assigned as Justin’s co-host for a charity ball. They started dating and became engaged in October 2004. A few months later, they married on 28th May 2005 at Montreal’s Sainte-Madeleine d’Outremont Church. They have three children. The oldest boy, Xavier born in 2007, a girl, Ella-Grace, born in 2009, and a boy Hadrien born in 2014.
In June 2013, only two months after Justin became the leader of the Liberal party, Justin’s family moved to a rented home in Ottawa’s Rockcliffe Park. Same neighbourhood near where Trudeau resided as a child during his father’s time as Prime Minister.
On 18th August 2014, an intruder broke into Justin’s family house while everyone was asleep. Nothing was stolen or damaged, but the intruder left a threatening note.
On 12th March 2020, Justin and his family were isolated during a Covid-19 pandemic. His wife began exhibiting flu-like symptoms and tested positive for Covid-19. She recovered by the end of March 2020.
The career of Justin Trudeau
Justin Trudeau had been interested in politics from a very young age. He offered his support to party leader John Turner in the 1988 federal election.
Justin has a bachelor of education degree from the University of British Columbia and a bachelor of arts degree in literature from McGill University.
In 2000, Justin and his family started the Kokanee Glacier Alpine Campaign for winter sports safety after his brother Michel died in an avalanche during a ski trip. This campaign was stopped in 2002 after the Government of British Columbia stopped its funding for a public avalanche warning system.
On 29th April 2007, Justin Trudeau won the Liberal party’s nomination with 690 votes against his opponents 350 and 220 votes. His opponents were Mary Deros, a Montreal city councillor and Basilio Giordano, the publisher of a local Italian-language newspaper.
On 14th October 2008, present Prime Minister Stephen Harper called an election where Justin narrowly defeated Bloc Québécois incumbent Vivian Barbot.
After Dion’s resignation in 2008, Justin Trudeau led liberal’s on the longest campaign in the century. They won on 19th October 2015 184 out of 338 seats, leaving them with a strong majority government. Shortly after winning, Justin declared in a CBC News interview that he is ready to bring Canadians together despite their differences.
In January 2017, Justin Trudeau was found violating four provisions of the Conflict of Interest Act during his vacation at Aga Khan IV private island in the Bahamas.
In the 2021 federal election, Justin won a third mandate and his second minority government. He won 160 seats and received only 32.6 percent of the popular vote. Which is the lowest percentage of the national popular vote for a governing party in Canadian history.
During his time as a Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau received multiple death threats and assassination plots.
Social media career of Justin Trudeau
Justin Trudeau has a large audience of almost 4 million Instagram followers and nearly 6 million Twitter followers.
This might seem like a lot, but he is nowhere close to some of the political icons worldwide. Here are some politicians with wider reach on social media than Justin Trudeau.
- Joe Biden - Instagram followers: 17.9 million, Twitter followers: 30.6 million
- Donald Trump - Instagram followers: 24 million
- The Pope - Instagram followers: 8.1 million, Twitter followers: 18.8 million
- Narendra Modi (Prime Minister of India) - Instagram followers: 56.5 million, Twitter followers: 69.3 million
Justin Trudeau might not have the most followers, but his social media pages feel different and more personal. In 2021, Justin Trudeau posted a picture with his youngest child that he took for vaccination and advised parents to do the same.
Justin is also a part of controversy on the internet. Lately, he has been a target of Canadian Democratic politician Jagmeet Singh who called him in his latest TikTok “all talk no action.”
In his best of 2020 posts, Justin included a photo with Joe Biden congratulating him as president-elect with more than 600,000 likes.
His second most popular post was a video where Justin asks Canadians to stay safe and, most importantly, at home with over 400,000 likes.
All the other posts in his best nine have over 200,000 likes. These show Justin taking an elbow bump (a pandemic alternative to hand-shaking) with different people, such as Christia Freeland with his oldest son when he was a toddler.
Justin Trudeau even appeared in one American article about “Why this guy cannot be our president?” during a ruling of Donald Trump. Picture in this article included Justin doing the Mayurasana pose, which involves balancing on only your arms while your feet are up in the air. According to Justin, his father was also skilled at this Yoga pose.
One picture, in particular, blew up all over the internet. Justin is standing with one leg on a chair with his butt drawing too much attention. Some people even went as far as calling it political porn. One user even tweeted out that he is daydreaming about Justin’s butt.
How much does Justin Trudeau earn? Net worth!
Justin Trudeau’s estimated net worth is roughly $10 million.
As a member of Parliament for Papineau, Justin earns a base salary of $179,000 (around $140,000 USD). In addition, he earns another $179,000 for his post as Prime Minister of Canada, leaving him with a total of $358,000 CAD (around $280,000 USD). On top of his salary, Justin also earns a $2,000 annual car allowance which may not go very far on maintenance for his 1960 Mercedes-Benz 300SL.
In 2007, when Justin didn’t hold a political office yet, Justin reported $467,000 in speaking fees.
Interesting facts about Justin Trudeau
- Justin’s zodiac sign is Capricorn.
- His height is 188 centimetres or 6’2”.
- His weight is 82 kilograms or 180lbs.
- Justin is the first prime minister born in Ottawa.
- In 1971, Justin was born on Christmas Day.
- He is the second child in Canadian history to be born to a serving prime minister.
- Justin won the election one day after what would have been his father’s 96th birthday.
- Justin proposed to Sophie Grégoire on 18th October 2004 – on what would have been his father’s 85th birthday.
- Justin’s wife Sophie was a classmate and friend of his youngest brother Michel, who died in 1998
- Justin got engaged with his wife Sophie in the royal suite at the posh St. James Hotel in Old Montreal. Their wedding was in the same hotel.
- Justin and Sophie eschewed the traditional wedding cake at their reception, instead offering guests a selection of desserts. Sophie later said the wedding cake is “tacky.”
- He had a role in the 2007 miniseries The Great War. Justin had the role of Talbot Mercer Papineau. This soldier a Canada’s first Rhodes Scholars, was killed in the Battle of Passchendaele.
- Justin will become the eighth prime minister with a name that begins with the letter “J.” Of Canada’s 22 prime ministers, there have been five Johns, a Joe and a Jean.
- Justin is the eighth prime minister in his 40s. He is also the second youngest, right after Joe Clark, who became prime minister one day before his 40th birthday.
- Justin might be the first prime minister with a tattoo. His left shoulder is covered with a large planet Earth tattoo that he got in his 20s, surrounded by a Haida raven that got added later in his 40s.
- Before Justin Trudeau got elected, he was already a prime minister in a futuristic video game Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
- Justin Trudeau competed and won in the 2012 charity boxing match against Canadian Conservative Sen. Patrick Brazeau.
- Before dominating the political field, Justin was a french, math and drama teacher.
- Justin was on a cover of a 2016 Marvel comic with his boxing gloves and a Canadian jersey.
- After getting elected as Prime Minister, he brought his fathers old desk to his new office.
- He once laid down a reporter after he asked about quantum computing. Justin proved he understood it and calmly explained.
- Justin Trudeau is a fan of Stephen King.
- At one point in his life, Justin Trudeau sported a weird patch of facial hair that he may never live down.
- Matthew Perry remembered he and a friend had beat up a younger Trudeau because of jealousy over his athletic ability.
- In 2016, Trudeau was honoured as one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the leader category.
- Justin Trudeau was named 69 out of 73 on Forbes’ Most Powerful People of 2015.
