From the CBC:
“Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau announce
separation”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire
Trudeau, have decided to separate, according to statements posted online by
both of them. "Sophie and I would like to share the fact that after many
meaningful and difficult conversations, we have made the decision to
separate," Trudeau wrote in a message posted to his Instagram account. Trudeau,
51, and Grégoire, 48, were married in May 2005 and have three children
together: two sons, Xavier, 15, and Hadrien, nine, and one daughter,
14-year-old Ella-Grace. "As always, we remain a close family with deep
love and respect for each other and for everything we have built and will
continue to build," Trudeau and Grégoire Trudeau wrote in identical
messages. "For the well-being of our children, we ask that you respect our
and their privacy."
A prominent presence Grégoire Trudeau, a former television presenter, has been a
prominent presence at Trudeau's side throughout his political career and become
a public figure in her own right as an advocate for several charitable and
social causes, including mental health and gender equality. According to
a statement from the Prime Minister's Office, Trudeau and Grégoire Trudeau have
"signed a legal separation agreement." "They have worked
to ensure that all legal and ethical steps with regards to their decision to
separate have been taken, and will continue to do so moving forward,"
Trudeau's office said. "They remain a close family and Sophie and
the Prime Minister are focused on raising their kids in a safe, loving and
collaborative environment. Both parents
will be a constant presence in their children's lives and Canadians can expect
to often see the family together. The family will be together on vacation,
beginning next week." The announcement of their separation was
extensively covered by international media on Wednesday. Trudeau's
parents — former prime minister Pierre Trudeau and Margaret Trudeau — famously
separated in 1977.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire
Trudeau, have posted statements online saying they are separating after 18
years of marriage. As recounted in his autobiography, Common Ground, Trudeau
and Grégoire Trudeau began dating in 2003. Grégoire Trudeau, the daughter of a
stockbroker and a nurse, was a former schoolmate of Trudeau's late brother,
Michel. The couple became engaged in 2004 and married each other a year later
during a ceremony at Montreal's Sainte-Madeleine d'Outremont church — "by
Canadian standards, a sweet and appropriately understated fairy-tale
wedding," was how a writer for Maclean's described it.
'Our marriage isn't perfect' Both Trudeau and Grégoire Trudeau
spoke at times candidly about their relationship and the challenges of
marriage. "Our marriage isn't perfect, and we have had difficult
ups and downs, yet Sophie remains my best friend, my partner, my love,"
Trudeau wrote in Common Ground, which was published in 2014. Grégoire
Trudeau told an interviewer in 2015 that "no marriage is easy." "I'm almost kind of proud of the fact
that we've had hardship, yes, because we want authenticity. We want
truth," she said. "We want to grow closer as individuals through our
lifetime and we're both dreamers and we want to be together for as long as we
can." Trudeau launched his political career in 2007, when he
decided to seek the Liberal Party nomination in the Montreal riding of
Papineau. After winning there in 2008 and 2011, Trudeau began to consider
seeking the Liberal leadership. The decision, he wrote, would ultimately come
down to "a deeply personal private discussion between Sophie and me."
"We had many long, honest talks that summer," Trudeau recalled.
"I wanted to be sure she knew, from my own
experience, just how rough that life can be. I recalled for Sophie that
my father had once told me I should never feel compelled to run for office.
'Our family has done enough,' he said." His father said that,
Trudeau noted, "despite having never experienced the incessant, base
vitriol of twenty-first-century politics." "I welcome a good tussle,
and my skin is thick, but I had grown up in the reality of public life,"
Trudeau wrote. "Sophie had not, and our decision would affect our kids, in
some ways, more than either of us." In an interview in 2008,
Grégoire Trudeau said that when she met Trudeau, "politics was not
impossible, but it was not in the short-term or the mid-term plan." "But
an opportunity came up, and we felt that if we weren't going to embark on this
adventure, a part of us would be selfish with the voice that we have and the
opportunities that are given to us," she said.
Personal lives generally private matters In Common Ground, Trudeau credits
Grégoire Trudeau with "profoundly" influencing his style of politics
and for helping keep him grounded. "Sometimes
it's easy for people who have made politics their livelihood to get caught up
in the heat of battle and forget about their personal values. Sophie never
does, and no matter how intense things get, she makes sure I don't
either," Trudeau wrote. The personal lives of prime ministers are
generally treated as private matters. But Pierre Trudeau's relationship with
Margaret Sinclair — including their
marriage in 1971 and their separation in 1977 was highly publicized. Trudeau
was the first prime minister to get married while in office and also the first
to publicly separate from his partner. Margaret Trudeau later disclosed her
long struggle with mental illness.
Justin Trudeau, who was born nine months after his parents
wed, experienced their divorce as a young child and he wrote at length about
those years in Common Ground. Trudeau said that much of what was written about
his parent's relationship was "lurid and inaccurate." "From my
perspective today, the commonly held story of my parents' marital breakdown is
nothing but a caricature, because my father was not just the tradition-bound
diehard he appeared and my mother was not entirely the totally free spirit that
her actions suggest," Trudeau wrote. "Things are never that simple, especially
with a couple as complex as my parents, and I remain amused by and exasperated
with those who view their relationship — all the passion, triumph,
achievements, and tragedy — in black and white, seeing it merely as a flawed
union between a cool and aloof man and an exuberant and uninhibited younger
woman. It was that, but also much more."
^ Like Father – Like Son. ^
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-gregoire-separation-1.6925254
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