Trudeau disclosure reveals inheritance worth $1.2M
I’ve ... grown used to people being shocked that I don’t live in a castle
JUSTIN TRUDEAU
Federal Liberal leadership front-runner Justin Trudeau has provided a rare disclosure of his personal finances to quell speculation about his family’s wealth and head off concerns over potential conflicts of interest.
At the request of the Ottawa Citizen, Trudeau’s campaign staff produced a valuation of the company that manages the money he inherited from his father and gave a full list of his paid speaking events in the years before he announced his run for the leadership.
The documents show that while Trudeau’s inheritance is now worth about $1.2 million, he also built a public-speaking business that earned him more than $450,000 in its best year.
Should he become Liberal leader, Trudeau says, he will set a new ethical standard by moving the stocks and bonds he inherited into a blind trust, a requirement that is currently in place for cabinet ministers but not for most MPs.
Trudeau, 41, allows that he “won the lottery” by having a wealthy family, but says there are misconceptions about the size of the estate left by his father.
“I’ve quietly grown used to people being shocked that I don’t live in a castle,” said Trudeau, who resides in a semi-detached two-storey Montreal home with a sizable mortgage.
Trudeau said he agreed to speak about his personal finances, a subject he has never discussed publicly, so that people would better understand how he chose to use his money.
“It wasn’t to go off and spend a year in Saint-Tropez or buy a boat and sail around the world,” he said after a campaign stop last week.
“I worked as a high school teacher and a whitewater river guide in the summer to make money. I worked as a camp counsellor earning $900 for a summer.”
Dividends from the family’s holding company were not enough to live off, Trudeau says, but the money did allow him to travel, study and take lower paying jobs before he became a professional public speaker and, later, an MP.
Trudeau says his father had hoped the family money would allow him and his brother to pursue their interests — his in education and now politics, brother Alexandre (Sacha) in filmmaking and journalism.
“Whatever we wanted to do, we had enough to live a modest but decent life. And that was incredibly lucky.”
The Trudeau family wealth originates with Justin’s grandfather, Charles-Emile Trudeau, who made his fortune in Montreal gas stations in the early part of the 20th century. He rolled his money into real estate, carrying the family through the Depression.
Pierre Trudeau inherited a share of his father’s money, split with his own siblings. Later in life, he prepared to portion it out to his sons.
The boys were given shares in 90562 Canada Inc., the federal corporation that held Trudeau’s portfolio of securities.
The succession plans were set up to transfer the company’s assets to the Trudeau sons over time, to guard against the possibility the money would vanish in a spending binge in their wild 20s. This scheduled transfer concludes only when Justin reaches age 45 in 2016 — with distribution of artwork and some property still in the estate.
As they came of age, the heirs received regular dividends from the company — Justin’s topped out at about $20,000 annually.
Aided by this stipend, Justin backpacked around Europe after high
I realized I couldn’t feel guilty about what I had. JUSTIN TRUDEAU
school and later travelled through Africa, then went to teachers’ college. His undergraduate studies at McGill University in Montreal were funded, in part, by the Canada Savings Bonds his father had bought.
After school, Trudeau ended up in Whistler Village, B.C., teaching snowboarding and putting his martial arts and boxing training to work as a nightclub doorman.
As he became serious about a career, the family money backstopped him when he took a job teaching in Vancouver, supplementing his salary of about $44,000.
Starting in 2006, Trudeau tapped into a vocation that became far more lucrative that teaching — paid speaking. His family name and advocacy for youth issues had put him in demand, and he signed up with Speaker’s Spotlight bureau.
The arrangement proved highly profitable. Trudeau earned $290,000 from speaking events in 2006, according to documents voluntarily provided by his campaign.
In 2007, with some clients paying $15,000 for an event, Trudeau earned $462,000 on the speaking circuit.
With the approval of the federal ethics commissioner, Trudeau continued to take on occasional paid speaking jobs while sitting as an MP, though far fewer of them. As recently as 2012, he earned $72,000 for four speaking events. Now that he is seeking the Liberal leadership, Trudeau has discontinued this work.
In 2010, the holdings in Pierre Trudeau’s original numbered company were “butterflied” and split into separate companies.
Justin Trudeau’s company, 7664699 Canada Inc., had assets worth $1,242,522 as of August 2011, according to a statement prepared by accounting firm BDO last summer.
By disclosing the value of his holdings and speaking income, Trudeau far surpasses the reporting requirements for MPs, who must list assets and income sources worth more than $10,000 but not their exact values.
Trudeau said he was confronted with questions about his wealth when he first ran in Papineau, one of Quebec’s most economically disadvantaged ridings.
“My answer was, no, I don’t know what it’s like to not know where my next meal is coming from.”
But he said he realized he could use the education and experience his family money afforded him in the service of people in his riding.
“I realized I couldn’t feel guilty about what I had. I just had to do right with what I had,” he said.