Eleanor Roosevelt said that the role of the First Lady was not a job but rather a circumstance. For Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, it is even more oblique. She is neither the former First Lady – since Canada does not endow the prime ministerial spouse with ‘première dame’ status – nor is she wife to Justin Trudeau, since their separation in 2023. In the wake of his resignation this week, she inhabits a curious predicament.
As Canada’s Liberal first couple, they incarnated the kind of hip grandiosity of the Obamas without, of course, being black
How better to occupy that quandary than to amplify her self-styled role as a wellness guru, mental-health expert and relationship healer? No sooner had Trudeau junior stood in great coat and gloves and offered his démission in the Ottawa snow than Mme Grégoire Trudeau, a former television anchor, was posting pictures of herself from a ski resort. In the post, she exhorted us all to better mental health via her ‘path to freedom’.
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