The Trudeau’s family fortune, and the foundation for Justin Trudeau’s eventual trust fund which affords him his life of admitted white “privilege,” began in 1934 when Charles-Emile Trudeau, son of a semi-literate farmer, known to his friends as “Charley,” eventual father of one PM and grandfather of another, sold his Montreal-area gas stations to the big boys of Imperial Oil.
Those gas stations, bolstered over the years by an innovative loyalty program that boasted some 15,000 members, sold for the tidy sum of $1 million…in 1934.
Ah….Ok. For perspective, $1 million in 1934 would be equal to $18.7 million in 2018 money, and that’s just with inflation and compound interest, and lazily sitting in a bank.
Charles-Emile Trudeau seemed to be the epitome of a small businessman of his era. He started with one gas station, worked long and hard hours, eventually added another, provided good middle-class jobs to his employees, and kept the ball rolling until his loyalty program paid off with him owning 30 gas stations, all with a solid customer base.
Under his grandson’s Liberal government, he likely would have not stood a chance to build such a flourishing business and, down the line, his grandson would not have a hefty trust fund, no life of privilege, and no fancy private school where he thought nothing of wearing blackface at a gala as if he had just popped out of Aladdin’s lamp, but that’s a different story.
en.wikipedia.org