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Soon after he took over as Prime Minister, Trudeau vowed that "I will not let this job louse up my private life." Trudeau and his family—and his former girl friends—have a sort of conspiracy of silence on the subject of his social activities. Trudeau says that he is very close to his aging mother, with whom he lived in the family's large brick house in Outrement until about three years ago. When asked why he has never married, he once replied: "I've never been asked, but this is leap year, and I'm still young." Trudeau's friends think that he will eventually marry.
There is also an obscure, enigmatic, and somewhat labyrinthian Trudeau. A practicing Roman Catholic, he often goes on formal church retreats. He is interested in Eastern religions, notably Buddhism, that are "religions of love rather than ethics or morals or obligation or principle." Whenever he can, he goes off to his prefabricated chalet in the Laurentian Mountains where "I replenish my emotions, find my inner directives." With his colleagues, Trudeau is a man of little small talk. He can be moody and, when dealing with lesser intellects, even irritable to the point of arrogance. When pursuing a political goal, he can be fierce, even ruthless.
Unique Rapport. Though shy, Trudeau somehow achieved unique rapport with people. The metamorphosis began, his aides say, about the time of the Liberal nominating convention. After that, Trudeau's flair for showmanship became his dominant trait. During the campaign, he reached out to the tumultuous crowds just as eagerly as they clutched for his hand. Thus began the phenomenon that the press quickly dubbed "Trudeaumania."
His campaign against Conservative Robert Stanfield, the sensible but restrained former premier of Nova Scotia, may have irrevocably changed the pace and style of Canadian politics. In a DC-9 jet and a helicopter, Trudeau bounced around the country as if it were the size of Rhode Island. Wherever he went, he brought glamour, style, movement. Matrons as well as teeny-boppers flocked to his side. He stressed participation, involvement, brought together a campaign army of talented, worshipful political amateurs as well as old pros. "This country is just beginning to burst into its greatness," he said in speeches reminiscent of John Kennedy's. "Come take my hand and we will adventure together."
Outpouring of Hate. Often he felt duty bound to tell his audiences painful things because "there are no magic solutions, we are not magicians or Santa Clauses." In rural Ontario, he told prosperous farmers that their taxes would have to pay for programs in the poorer provinces. In British Columbia, where the shipyards have been hurt by foreign competition, Trudeau talked, instead, about Canada's low-income minorities. "What about the shipyards?" a heckler shouted. "What about the Indians and Eskimos?" Trudeau shot back, "Have you thought about them?"
In spite of all Trudeau's popularity, the campaign was marked by considerable bitterness, including an outpouring of hate literature. There were even the expectable innuendoes based on his backing of the homosexual reform bill and his bachelor status. But Trudeau never lost his temper or became flustered, coolly shrugged it all off.