New Canadian prime minister has Caithness roots
CANADA’s new prime minister Justin Trudeau is the second to hold the post to share Caithness family roots.
His great grandfather emigrated from Wick to start a new life in north America more than 100 years ago.
Trudeau – the son of former Canada premier Pierre Trudeau – swept to victory in the general election replacing Stephen Harper who had been in power since 2006.
The 43-year-old was sworn in at a ceremony in Ottawa earlier this week after the Liberal Party won enough seats to form a majority government.
His great-grandfather, James George Sinclair, left Scotland to start a new life in Vancouver in 1911. There is little on record about him though his son, also James, started the family’s political line when he was elected to the Canadian House of Commons representing Vancouver North in the 1940 federal election.
Also a Liberal, he was re-elected in 1945 and in 1949, 1953, and 1957 in Coast-Capilano during which he had spells as parliamentary assistant to the minister of finance and the Canadian minister of fisheries.
Justin Trudeau’s mother Margaret is an author, actress, photographer and former television talk show hostess who married Pierre. The couple met in Tahiti when she was 18 and Trudeau was 30 years older. They married in 1972 and had three children including Justin before they divorced in 1984. Pierre died in 2000.
Margaret travelled to Caithness occasionally and a distant cousin, Inverness-based economic consultant Tony Mackay, met her on a number of occasions in Wick. A sufferer from bipolar disorder, she is a prominent advocate for the need to get rid of the social stigma attached to mental illness and is an honorary patron of the Canadian Mental Health Association.
Justin Trudeau is married to Canadian TV host Sophie Grégoire with the couple having three children, Xavier, Hadrien and Ella-Grace.
