Charles-Émile Trudeau

Charles-Émile Trudeau
Born	(1887-07-05)July 5, 1887 Saint-Michel-de-Napierville, Quebec, Canada
Died	Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.
Nationality	Canadian
Occupation	Entrepreneur Lawyer
Spouse(s)	Grace Elliott
Children	4 (including Pierre Trudeau)

Joseph Charles-Émile "Charley" Trudeau (July 5, 1887 – April 10, 1935) was a successful French Canadian entrepreneur, father of Pierre Trudeau, 15th Prime Minister of Canada, and grandfather of Justin Trudeau, 23rd and current Prime Minister of Canada.

Life and career

Charles-Émile Trudeau was born on his family's farm in Saint-Michel-de-Napierville, Quebec, the son of Joseph Trudeau (1848–1919), a semi-literate farmer, and Malvina Cardinal (1849–1931), whose own father was Saint-Constant, Quebec's mayor Solime Cardinal (1815–1897) who insisted that their sons be given a good education which her husband agreed sending them to College Sainte-Marie. Trudeau later studied law at the Laval University's campus in Montreal which would later became the University of Montreal in 1919. In 1915, after a ten-year courtship, he married Grace Elliott (1890–1973), the daughter of a prominent Scots-Quebecer entrepreneur, Phillip-Armstrong Elliott (1859–1936), and his wife Sarah-Rebecca Sauve (1857–1899), and had four children, their first child dying at birth. Charles-Émile Trudeau was considered gregarious, boisterous and extravagant.

Trudeau, a lawyer by training, practiced for 10 years with Ernest Bertrand, at that time the Senior Crown Prosecutor, as well as Charles E. Guérin. Trudeau accumulated a fortune by building a number of gas stations around the Montreal area and a loyalty program known as the Automobile Owners' Association, which by 1932 had 15,000 members, patronizing Trudeau's thirty stations. He sold his business to Champlain Oil Products Limited for $1 million, while remaining with Champlain as its general manager. Among his other investments, Trudeau had interests in mining companies. He was a noted baseball enthusiast: the largest shareholder and member of the Board of Directors of the Montreal Royals baseball team, and the team's vice-president at the time of his death. He was also vice-president of Montreal's Belmont Park and a prominent philanthropist, including as a benefactor of the Hôpital Sainte-Jeanne d'Arc, for which he also served as director at the time of his death.

Politically, Trudeau was a strong supporter of the Conservative Party, opposed to Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. Pierre Trudeau would recall that "political arguments never lacked liveliness" between Charles and his friends.

Death and legacy

He died of a heart attack in 1935 in Orlando, Florida, while on the road with the Royals, and laid to rest at his family vault in St-Rémi-de-Napierville Cemetery. Due to Trudeau's business, Pierre Trudeau himself inherited wealth. Trudeau served as an inspiration to the Prime Minister. As Jim Coutts, Pierre Trudeau's aide, recalled, Trudeau "talked, at times, of his father, whom he greatly admired, but who was too busy to understand his son's interests or spend much time with him." Pierre Trudeau named his third son Michel Charles Émile Trudeau after him.