Girl who married Trudeau started kissing craze

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32565, 26 March 1971, Page 5

Girl who married Trudeau started kissing craze

(By

MELVIN SAFRIN,

N.Z.P.A. special correspondent)

TORONTO, March 16. Mr Pierre Elliott Trudeau has married the girl who three years ago helped start him on his way toward becoming Canada’s most kissed and kissing Prime Minister.

The 51-year-old Prime Minister, long rated high among I the world’s most eligible I bachelors, surprised just about everyone by marrying

22-year-old Margaret Sinclair in a quiet ceremony in Vancouver on March 4. Not even his Cabinet colleagues were aware of the true purpose of his trip from Ottawa to the Pacific coast for what he said was to be a few days of ski-ing in the Rocky Mountains. Family Secret

Even the bride’s four sisters wene apparently kept in. the dark until the last moment, being told that they were dressing for a family portrait marking the sixtieth anniversary of their father’s arrival in Canada from Scotland.

Margie Sinclair, darkhaired, blue-eyed and slender, had known Mr Trudeau for more than three years. They met in December,-1967, dur-' ing a vacation in Moorea, near Tahiti, at a time when he was trying to decide whether to run for the leadership of the Liberal Party, then held by Mr Lester Pearson.

Mr James Sinclair, a former Liberal Minister of Fisheries, was visiting the Pacific i island with his wife and three of their daughters. Mr .Trudeau spent some time with the girls, teaching them to water-ski and skin-dive. A few months later, after he had decided to enter the race, he turned up in Vancouver to launch his leadership campaign. Among a group of attractive young women waiting outside his hotel was Margaret Sinclair, Craze starts When Mr Trudeau emerged, she jumped forward and kissed him on both ' cheeks. That was the start of a kissing craze that has since I followed him everywhere, i women of all ages vying for the opportunity to buss or be bussed by him. During the next three years the Prime Minister was occasionally reported seen with Miss Sinclair but their meet-

ings never seemed to generate the talk that his dates with other women did. At various times he was seen with the actresses, Miss Barbra Streisand, and Miss Louis Marleau, and a teacher, Miss Madeleine Gobeil, providing speculative fodder for gossip columnists.

But even though a Singapore seer predicted marriage for Mr Trudeau in a talk with reporters at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ conference earlier this year, the general feeling among Canadians was that the Prime Minister probably would never marry.

If anything, he seemed to like women too well to settle down with only one. And while he has always been remarkably, athletic and youthful, he appeared to be edging past the marriageable age. Genuine joy When the surprise announcement came, there was genuine joy among Canadians, albeit a few raised eyebrows at the thought that Mr Trudeau had married a girl 29 years younger and that he was actually two years older than the bride’s mother.

Nevertheless, everyone seemed to regard it as a good match. Both the Trudeaus are athletic—in fact Margaret may be a better skier than Pierre—she has become fluent in his native tongue, French, and has been converted to his religion, Roman Catholicism, having been raised an Anglican. Not to mention the important fact that she is a mature, intelligent, and sensitive young woman, a university graduate in sociology and political science who

likes to travel and has seen more of life than most girls of her age. Since the marriage there has been speculation about what effect it will have on

Mr Trudeau’s political career. His charismatic appeal has been exceptionally strong among women and they played a major part in his successful campaign for election in April, 1968. But although some profess to be broken-hearted, it seems safe to suggest that he has not lost many votes. Higher popularity Public opinion polls in recent months have shown his popularity to be higher than ever, despite a serious unemployment problem. And if the economy picks up later this year, the Liberals should be in good shape when, as expected, an election is held in mid-1972.

Certainly Mrs Trudeau should be a distinct asset when her husband goes campaigning. The men will like her because she is pretty and vivacious, and the women will be interested in seeing what sort of girl was able to divert the Prime Minister from carefree bachelorhood. The night before his wedding Mr Trudeau appeared at a Liberal Party fund-raising banquet in Toronto and delivered a speech that surprised the party faithful. They wondered openly why he did not deal' with such serious subjects as unemployment or inflation. Women’s rights It was not until the next night that they put two and two together and realised that Mr Trudeau had been engaging in a bit of a put-on. His subject had been women’s rights and he might have been prophetic when he said:

“Together but different, equal but distinct, men and women can discover each other, and can thenceforth discover and create an infinitely more exciting and fruitful world than they could acting independently.”