Dateline Canada, August 2nd: Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife of 18 years have announced their separation.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday announced that he and his wife Sophie are separating after 18 years of marriage.
Trudeau made the announcement in an Instagram post.
“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.
“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,” he continued.
They made their announcement on an Instagram post?
Yes, they sure did:
View this post on Instagram
Pro-tip to PM Trudeau: You probably should have disabled comments on that post.
In that post, as you see, PM Trudeau asks:
“For the well-being of our children, we ask that you respect our and their privacy. Thank you.”
Sophie Grégoire, a former television reporter in Quebec, married Trudeau in 2005. Together, they have three children.
It’s important to keep in mind here that no matter what one may think of Justin Trudeau or his soon-to-be ex-wife, they are nevertheless a family going through some hard times, and one has to feel bad for the children, who are innocent and don’t always come out of such matters emotionally intact. With that said, you have to wonder about the plea for privacy from someone who splashed their separation announcement on Instagram and enabled the entire world to comment on it.
PM Trudeau certainly has a lot to deal with at the moment, what with his closest political ally outside Canada slipping ever further into dementia and possible Chinese interference in Canadian elections. Marital strife will certainly add to his list of problems.
But to announce it on Instagram?
A quick look at PM Trudeau’s Instagram account reveals no similar personal announcements, although one shows him getting pretty cozy with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy:
View this post on Instagram
That seems a more appropriate use for a platform like Instagram; photos and videos of matters of State and affairs (pun not intended) with other allied nations.
Marital breakups are sad. But the fact here is that Justin Trudeau is not a person who should be taken too seriously. His trivializing – and publicizing – something as personal as a separation announcement on an essentially trivial platform like Instagram, which is more typically a haven for empty-headed “influencers” trying to use their… physical assets to hawk music, personal care items, vacation plans, and the like, is further proof of this.
Justin Trudeau comes by this honestly. His father, Pierre Trudeau, was known as a “swinger” and a “playboy statesman” prior to his election as Prime Minister (remember swingers?) but was more accomplished once in office than Trudeau the Younger. While Justin Trudeau has, at the time of this writing, not been established to be partaking in any extramarital shenanigans – and credit to him for that, if accurate – he, unlike his father, may not be much of a swinger, but also unlike his father, he’s not much of a statesman, either. Pierre Trudeau was a liberal but managed to put together a governing coalition, and things in Canada weren’t too bad during his tenure. With Justin – not so much.
Leading a nation – even Canada – has to be horrendously stressful and hard on the family as well as the principal. For evidence of this, look at how American Presidents typically age in their tenures – except the incumbent, who was already elderly, weak, and senile when he took office. It’s surprising more of these people don’t have marital problems. We certainly should feel bad for the Trudeau children, who are going through a bad time they probably cannot fully understand and who are certainly not responsible for the troubles or the actions of their parents.
But Instagram? Seriously?
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