Full interview: Margaret Trudeau sits down with Lisa LaFlamme

At the young age of 22, Margaret Trudeau moved into 24 Sussex Drive and was thrust into the spotlight as she assumed the role of the prime minister’s wife. Now, more than four decades later, she watches as her eldest son, Justin Trudeau, moves back into the home in which she raised him.

On Tuesday, the former wife of Pierre Trudeau and mother of Canada’s new prime minister-designate sat down with CTV News Chief Anchor and Senior Editor Lisa LaFlamme for an exclusive, one-on-one interview to discuss motherhood, mental health and her former home.

The following is a transcript of a 13-minute interview, slightly abridged and edited for brevity and clarity.

Lisa LaFlamme: Margaret Trudeau joins us now in the newsroom. So happy to have you with us tonight.

Margaret Trudeau: Thank you, Lisa. My pleasure.

Now you’ve had about a week to digest this.

Oh yes, but as a mom with my strong intuition, I always knew he was going to win the landslide. Everybody just thought I was crazy if I said it out loud.

So it was just mother’s intuition?

Well I knew, because why not? We need change, we need hope, we need to rebuild our country on so many levels. And Justin’s the one to do it. And his team.

We look at that picture, which is now an iconic picture, of you from election night holding your son’s face -- your son who is now prime minister.

What a moment. I know.

There was joy in your eyes, but I wonder if there was also some trepidation.

Oh yes, I know. More, perhaps, than most anyone would know, the level of sacrifice that goes into taking on the leadership of the country. It was my terrible disappointment at my young age of 22, when Pierre told me after he married me – well, “That’s that, now I’ve got you, and now I get back to work.”

And it was sort of 12-hour days that he’d work. “What about me?” I was self-involved then. But it is a hard, hard job, and I know Justin’s read-- well I’m not going to say that word (ready), but I know Justin can do it.

I think the whole country is over that one. But you know, you just brought up a really important point. You said at age 22 -- Pierre was 50 -- that you chalked it up to being self-involved.

Well I was. And terrified. And I had three babies in six years, and all the nursing and the pregnancies to boot. So for me, it was a time where I was ill-prepared. I was enthusiastic for most of it. I tried to do the best I could. I got into trouble from time to time, I know. But I was trying my best. It’s so different now, because it’s not my turn, first of all.

You go from being one-time wife of a prime minister now to mother of a prime minister. So what does that role look like for you?

Well, it’s just the same. Because Just is just Just, he’s one of my five children. He’s my son, my first-born and he was always the leader of the pack because he was the first-born of our big family. So I’ve watched Justin all these years knowing that he had a great future in front of him because he’s a great guy.

He was also the first baby born to a sitting prime minister in a century.

I know, 13 years he was in the public eye.

So give me a sense, first of all, that you were the first one to create that nursery at 24 Sussex.

Well, you just have to make yourself a home. And you have to remember at the same time, as I had to, to understand that this actually isn’t my home.

You get interesting people around the dining room table. You have a wonderful life, if you want it. But it was also a very structured life, very unforgivingly demanding on the prime minister. Sophie’s had 20 years on me now.

What are some of the obstacles in her path that you, who lived that life, might be able to--

Well, she’s got the first one right started, and that’s that, she can no longer drive her car. And that for a mom, just think about it. You just can’t whip out and go down to the store, over to your friends. It’s taking away your freedom in a very basic way. It’s necessary, she must be protected. But that in itself is knowing you’re always watched. You’re always watched.

Was that hard?

Not that you’ve got anything to hide, it’s just a feeling that -- but she’ll do fine with it. She’s ready, she’s got a very good attitude, and she’s such a nice, friendly person that she’ll get along with everyone.

I’ve always had the sense in the things I read about you that you felt it was a very isolating life.

It was for me. My family was 3,000 miles away, out on the west coast. And Pierre was 29 years older than me so his friends, I thought, were really old. He thought my friends were very immature and frivolous. So I didn’t have the support.

And all the work that I do now in mental health as a mental health advocate shows that when you are very stressed, when you are going through depression -- particularly if it’s after the birth of a baby, which was the beginning for me -- when you are in a mental state, an unhealthy mental state, you need support. You need family. You need people encouraging you, helping you make the baby steps into healing and recovery. And I let myself get very isolated.

How hard was that, though, when you finally felt you had to come clean with your own mental health challenges -- to go public with that?

Well that was the easiest thing in the world, Lisa, because I had recovered -- I got my life back. My children had got their mother back. I started being a grandmother. I started writing books and working hard, and having purpose in my life.

I went back to being the best that was me, that I’d lost through my mental illness, through my grief from having lost my son. Not being able to get out of depression. Not being able to accept that I had a serious illness -- that I had to be paid attention to.

And I’m sure not alone. One out of three of us across the country suffers a mental disorder at some point. Maybe just burnout, stress, anxiety, depression. But now we’ve got all the help in place across the country. Hopefully now we have to be proactive and get acting on it. Because I know this mental health community we’ve got across the country is working so hard to try to help people suffering.

Moving back to a familiar place – eventually

Though Trudeau spent much of her early adult life at 24 Sussex Drive, her son and his young family will be instead moving into the nearby Rideau Cottage until renovations can be performed at the official residence of the prime minister.

We now know that they will not be moving into 24 Sussex.

No. But their home is where their heart is. They're just going to be fine.

But do you support that decision?

Oh yes, I think it's a shame that 24 Sussex is nobody's home. It's the country's home. Why has it been allowed to -- it's not just the last government, there apparently haven't been any repairs since I was there, and it was a dusty, drafty old place then.

Do you have one searing memory of the condition of the house when you lived in it?

I remember penning a poem about the lonely icy view, and how cold I was inside and out. I think I really was physically cold because it is out on the river and the wind howls. We did put new windows in what we called the freedom room -- we did a renovation in '74, and we put new windows there -- so actually that room where we did have our family room wasn't as drafty as the rest.

And Harrington Lake would have been a refuge.

Oh it's the best place in the world. It's true Canadian, it's a beautiful lake. You can canoe, you can walk forever in the woods and be secure and be private.

What are your memories when you think of Harrington Lake with those little boys?

Oh I just had the most fun, I had a vegetable garden. Sophie will too, she's got a green thumb and I help her with her little patch. It's real life in the country for us. It always has been because we're a family that likes to go outside. And if we can be out in nature, all the worries that we have seem to, for the time we're out there, fall away. Because you get in balance.

Dare I ask, if 24 Sussex is dilapidated, in what shape is Harrington Lake?

I don't know, I imagine it probably needs a fix-up, too. I don't know. I hope not, because it's a beautiful place. It doesn't matter where they live. Justin's got a huge job in front of him. I'm grandma, what a lucky, wonderful role for me. So we'll just all be supporting the family.

Justin and his father

Though he finds himself in the same leadership role the elder Trudeau once occupied, Justin’s mind works in way his father’s doesn’t, Margaret says.

You've always said Pierre had a rational brain, and you have an intuitive one.

Yes.

What do you think Justin has?

He has both, he's quite complete. He's got the best from both. Justin can be very rational, very clear, clear, clear. But he also can be totally passionate and enthusiastic with a childlike sense of wonder. I mean, he can get so much into that. And I seem to be too much the childlike sense of wonder, and Pierre was too much the rational, intellectual logic of the situation. We actually called him Mr. Spock. He, Justin, seems to be more complete, I think.

So you have no concerns moving forward, having seen what was a negative campaign in general?

I visited ridings across the country during the campaign -- I didn't openly, publicly campaign, but I did meet a lot of the candidates and their volunteers, and I encouraged the troops and always talked about mental health.

And I found that the enthusiasm and being positive in itself was so good that why be negative? It would spill everywhere into the campaign if people are angry and negative. So the Liberals doing a positive and winning such a majority in this day and age by not attacking, by not breaking down the opponent--

I actually thought you were quite reserved during the campaign.

I was. I did not want them to say, “Justin was so not ready he has to have his mummy help him.” No, I did what I could. I did door-knock, too, for Marc Garneau.

And that night, though, did it feel like full circle on some level?

Yes, yes, it's quite extraordinary. The terrible anticipation, I know that feeling, I've lived through election nights. We were all together and the screen of the TV was so huge, and the red corner of Atlantic just got redder and redder, and the enthusiasm of everybody, and we started going, “Oh my gosh.”

And I knew, and Justin had told me he knew, too, but we couldn't really say it out loud. I think it's a question of really wanting change and wanting to have hope in your life, and wanting to be positive and pro-active. And I have to say, I don't know where he got his marching orders, but I know where I've got mine from, and I think that we all have to get out there and make this country the best it can be.

Speaking of marching orders, he says he inherited from you a zest for adventure and joyous spontaneity, so I think that's a pretty great legacy any child would want from their mother. It's been a pleasure to have you in the newsroom tonight.

Thank you.