The unglamorous life that awaits an ex-prime minister Trudeau

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Rarely in Canadian history has there been such unanimity in the notion that an incumbent prime minister shouldn’t be prime minister anymore.

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A recent Abacus Data poll found that 57 per cent of Canadians living in a Liberal riding wanted their MP to “call on Justin Trudeau to resign and not run again.”

As far back as June, an Ipsos poll found more than two thirds of Canadians wanted Trudeau to step down — a rate pollsters characterized as “close to rock bottom.” And it is now rare that a sit-down interview with the prime minister doesn’t end with queries about why he’s still prime minister.

But if Trudeau intends to delay his exit as long as humanly possible, one reason might be that he has a unique insight into the unglamorous afterlife that awaits him.

The classic post-politics job for a Canadian prime minister is to take up an ambiguous position in a major law office.

This was the route taken by Trudeau’s father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Within months of his 1984 resignation, the elder Trudeau accepted a job as counsel for the Montreal law firm Heenan Blaikie.

In a press conference convened at his modest new office (described as being just four square metres), Trudeau described his job as hanging around the office and answering questions from the other lawyers.

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“If occasionally my colleagues want to ask my advice on certain subjects, I’ll be happy to give it to them,” he said, offering the example of nuclear issues, civil liberties and other “things like that.”

Gone were the official limousines and VIP jets; the elder Trudeau now commuted to work by foot from his Montreal mansion.

Brian Mulroney similarly took up a job at Norton Rose Fulbright within weeks of his own 1993 resignation. Like Trudeau, his role was similarly that of a consultant.

A desk at a law firm would also await Jean Chrétien, first at Heenan Blaikie, and then Dentons after the former firm dissolved in 2014.

As recently as December, Chrétien was reporting that he still works there basically full-time. “I leave my home every morning at 9:00 o’clock for the office four mornings a week,” the 90-year-old said in an interview with Policy Magazine.

All-purpose consulting can also describe what Stephen Harper has been up to since leaving politics. Although, rather than take a salary with a law firm, he’s run it through his own shop, Harper & Associates, a firm that promises the “global network, experience and insight of a G-7 Leader to create value for clients.”

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One of those clients is the Government of Saskatchewan. Starting in 2019, they started paying Harper & Associates $240,000 per year to target “specific geographic regions of importance” for commodity exports.

There are also a wide variety of ambiguous jobs in academia and the non-profit sphere.

That’s been the primary pursuit of Kim Campbell; her resume includes a fellowship at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School and a four-year stint as founding principal of the University of Alberta’s Peter Lougheed Leadership College.

Trudeau has rarely acknowledged a life after his premiership, but he did say in a recent interview with the Freakonomics podcast that “when I leave politics I will look to teach again in one way, shape or form.”

Trudeau’s life outside politics will also likely see him re-enter the speaking circuit.

Almost every ex-prime minister has enlisted a speaking fee agent in retirement. The group APB Speakers manages Kim Campbell; her official booking site offers one of four speeches, ranging from “Gender & Power” to “We’re Already in World War III: Examining the Social & Political Dimensions of Climate Change.”

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Joe Clark is managed by the National Speakers Bureau. His booking page gives clients the choice of “Managing Diversity,” “Canada and the USA” and “How we lead: Canada in a century of change.”

Stephen Harper, represented by Worldwide Speakers Group, offers four speeches: “Foreign Policy Leadership,” “Growing Global Trade,” “Living in a Low-Growth World” and “21st Century Trends: Erosion of Global Stability.”

Where Trudeau might differ from all the other ex-PMs, however, is that he’s the only prime minister who was already raking in high speaking fees even when he was just a Montreal MP.

Between his election as a Papineau MP in 2008 and when he won the Liberal leadership in 2013, Trudeau has disclosed that he collected $277,000 in appearance and speaking fees paid out by 17 organizations. He stopped accepting paid appearances after deciding to run for the Liberal leadership.

Before his election as Liberal leader, Trudeau was easily pulling down five figures per appearance. In the summer of 2012, for instance, the New Brunswick-based Grace Foundation paid Trudeau $20,000 to headline a hospital fundraiser. Controversially, the event would lose money – prompting Trudeau to offer to repay the fee once it became a public scandal.

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IN OTHER NEWS

The attempted coup of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wasn’t quite as decisive as might have been expected, but ominously gave him five days to decide what to do. A three-and-a-half-hour Liberal caucus meeting on Wednesday featured about 25 to 30 MPs airing their grievances against the Liberal leader, and he was also presented with a letter that very delicately hinted at the same (according to National Post reporting, the letter “recognized Trudeau’s accomplishments in office” and was framed as MPs sharing “feedback from constituents” that he’s not wanted anymore). The letter reportedly said that if Trudeau was still Liberal leader by Monday, the dissident MPs would take unspecified actions. 

Meanwhile, in addition to the dissident MPs, a coterie of Liberal Party insiders have begun circulating a “Code Red Petition” urging the party’s national executive to conduct a party-wide leadership vote via secret ballot.

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