My Experience Working With Justin Trudeau: Quillette Cetera Episode 43

Quillette Senior Editor Jonathan Kay reflects on his time ghostwriting Justin Trudeau’s memoir and shares his take on Trudeau’s political trajectory—from golden boy to polariser-in-chief. We get into the highs of his early leadership, his pivot to hardcore social progressivism, the fallout from the truckers’ protest, and the growing anxiety around immigration. Kay also weighs in on the rise of Pierre Poilievre, the new conservative contender shaking up Canada’s political scene.

Shame on Us for Ever Believing Him

Justin Trudeau convinced me he was a sunny patriot who’d unify Canada. What I got instead was a cynical culture warrior who smeared opponents as bigots and defamed my country as a genocide state.

QuilletteJonathan Kay

Zoe Booth: Maybe to start, Jon, could you explain a bit about your background? I didn’t know until I read your piece that you were asked to ghostwrite Trudeau’s memoir. So you know him quite well.

Jonathan Kay: Yeah, this takes us back to 2014 when you were about a wee lass. This was the year before Trudeau got elected as Prime Minister. He was already a big deal—leader of the Liberal Party and, if I remember correctly, leader of the opposition. Canada’s political system is similar to Australia’s, so you get how all this parliamentary stuff works.

Explaining it to Americans is trickier. But like many politicians, he wanted to write a book that contextualised his life. In his case, there was a lot to explain because his dad, Pierre Trudeau, was a former Prime Minister. That gave him famous name recognition, but it also made him a target—especially for conservatives, who liked to frame him as a silver-spoon nepo baby.

Editorial assistant was the formal term in the publishing contract—ghostwriter isn’t used in those agreements. The liaison from Trudeau’s camp said they didn’t want a typical liberal fanboy perspective. They wanted someone who could push back during the editorial process, which I did because they wanted the book to appeal to a mainstream audience—not just Trudeau enthusiasts.

ZB: Nepo baby. (Laughs)

JK: Exactly. They wanted someone who might offer a bit of scepticism towards progressive dogmas. I wouldn’t call myself a conservative, but I was sceptical of certain ideas many progressives took for granted.

Anyway, the process was great. Trudeau was a gentleman—friendly, charming, and intelligent. The stereotype conservatives were using against him, this vapid blow-dried puppet narrative, wasn’t accurate. He was thoughtful. He didn’t come up the typical political path either—no law school or early political roles. He was a schoolteacher and even taught snowboarding.

ZB: Interesting. A different pathway.

JK: Exactly. He didn’t follow the conventional political track. He was athletic and charismatic. Actually, I wrote a piece about that at the time. He was great at sports, and while that shouldn’t matter in politics, it does in terms of public image. Yet, he also had these nerdy, endearing qualities—like getting really into Canada’s constitutional debates back in the ’90s. He loved intellectual puzzles and brainteasers. You could tell he was intellectually restless.

There was something childlike about him—a genuine curiosity. That charm worked well at first, but politics can ruin even the most likeable people. You go in likeable, but it’s tough to come out that way because the whole process tribalises you.

Trudeau had this energy, this curiosity—it was a big part of what made him likeable. But as I said earlier, politics has this way of turning people into tribal figures, and I think that’s what happened to him.

ZB: Let’s talk a little about how Trudeau changed. You really laid it all out in your piece—I found it really honest. You admitted that you believed in him initially and then said, “Shame on us for ever supporting him.” That’s a bold thing to say, especially considering the blowback from some people on social media. I saw comments calling you an idiot for supporting him in the first place. But I actually think it takes guts to admit when you were wrong.

JK: Yeah, I mean, I’m an idiot for all sorts of reasons, but thanks. The title—“Shame on Us”—was actually my suggestion. It’s a bit harsh, but necessary. Look, you have to trust politicians to some degree, right? Otherwise, what’s the point of engaging with politics at all? And in his first term, Trudeau did a lot of the stuff I expected him to do. It didn’t give me buyer’s remorse at the time. He raised taxes on the wealthy to fight income inequality, legalised marijuana—which I was in favour of—and even legalised assisted suicide, which is more controversial, but I support it.

He also handled the trade situation with Trump really well when the whole NAFTA renegotiation was happening. That was a genuine crisis, and Trudeau managed to get through it without significant damage to Canada’s economy. If he had bowed out after that first term, I think we’d be talking about him as a successful leader today. He would’ve left on a high note. But of course, politicians never do that—they hang on until things fall apart.

ZB: So what happened? Did the culture change and Trudeau just went along with it? Or was he genuinely supportive of all this stuff—like the endless virtue signalling, posing with the pride flags, drag queens, and whatnot?

JK: Yeah, and just to be clear, I have no issue with drag queens. I’ve been to drag shows—great performers, super fun. But Trudeau made it weird because it became this daily performance of social progressivism. It wasn’t just about tolerance; it turned into this sanctimonious fixation on signalling every possible progressive virtue.

He started embodying what used to be called wokeism—although I’m not sure we can still use that term. He transformed from a patriotic, upbeat leader into this Chief DEI Officer for Canada. He couldn’t stop apologising for everything—Canada being a genocide state, taking a knee for Black Lives Matter even though Minneapolis isn’t in Canada, lowering the flags for months over a residential school controversy that turned out to be based on incomplete information.

ZB: That sounds exactly like the type of people I imagine Trudeau surrounds himself with. It’s like he’s completely out of touch with regular people.

JK: Yeah, and to be fair, a lot of Ottawa’s culture is like that—very progressive. Ottawa is this weird mix of Washington and Portland, so it’s a mash-up of political power and smug civic culture. It’s a nice place to live, but it became ground zero for extreme COVID restrictions. There was even a rule where you couldn’t stop on the pavement to wave at your relatives in old-age homes. It was insane.

What you’re referring to, I think, is in the article—the trappings of social progressivism and the dogmas of social progressivism became this all-encompassing fixation: the language, the gender stuff, Black Lives Matter, taking a knee (even though Minneapolis is not in Canada), and the endless apologies. The very sanctimonious baggage that came with what used to be called wokeism—I’m not sure we’re allowed to call it that anymore—he became kind of the chief DEI officer for Canada. We elected this upbeat, patriotic, energetic, mainstream guy who, in the late 2010s, suddenly turned into this depressing, sanctimonious figure.

He was always taking a knee or telling us that Canada was a genocide state. He bought hard into the false story that 215 child corpses had been recovered from the grounds of a former school in British Columbia. There was a huge social panic about that in spring 2021, and he poured gas on that fire. He lowered flags on Canadian federal buildings for five and a half months—it was crazy. We didn’t think the flags were ever going to come up because he had gotten into this mode of puritanical social justice, where he couldn’t be woke enough.

You asked me why he made that transformation. I think part of the charm he had when I worked on the book project came from a desire to please others. The social justice movement bills itself as being kind, being nice, smothered in the honey of progressive mantras: empowering people, recognising their existence, being seen—all of that stuff. It tapped into his desire to connect with people, especially youth. He really lit up when we went to colleges. I went with him to a couple of college gigs, and he connected so well with 19- to 21-year-olds. He’s really into music and pop culture.

I think he and his advisors—some of whom I know—were big into social media. Don’t forget, this was the mid to late 2010s. Not every politician was into Twitter. A lot of the people around him were younger, early adopters, and they were like, “If you want to make it big on Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube, you’ve got to get with the pronouns and Black Lives Matter.”

He was front and centre, just like he wanted to be, even though a lot of that race politics stuff is alien to Canada. I think he sincerely bought into the social justice stuff, or maybe at least his aides did and told him to do it. But I blame him for not realising it was hurting the country—it became extremely divisive. Especially when COVID hit, and he went on this French interview show and started saying that vaccine sceptics were misogynists and racists. Around 2020–2021, he really bit hard into the idea that people on the other side were presumptive bigots and misogynists.

People don’t believe it when I tell them, but Canadian budget documents and mandate letters given to cabinet ministers were explicitly written in the jargon of intersectionality. They literally said, “We expect you to take an intersectional approach to the disbursement of such and such funds,” as if it were a grad student seminar at an arts college. It was crazy.

ZB: Right. That’s how I imagine all his staff and everyone around him to be. I don’t get how he could be so far removed from women in their twenties or young people.

JK: He surrounded himself with people like that. And to be fair, a lot of Ottawa is like this. Ottawa is a weird place because it’s kind of our Washington and our Portland put together. The civic culture of Ottawa happens to be—I don’t like to use the word woke because it’s become a term of abuse—but it has that insufferably smug political culture of Portland combined with being the nation’s capital, where Parliament and the Supreme Court are located.

ZB: Okay, is that your Portland?

JK: It has that small-town, insufferably smug political culture. But Ottawa is also a very nice place to live—more affordable than Toronto. However, its civic political culture has become extremely progressive. Ottawa was the craziest city in Canada during COVID restrictions. I don’t know if you in Australia heard this crazy story where the city government made a rule that you weren’t even allowed to stop on the sidewalk to wave to parents or grandparents in old-age homes. You had to keep walking. Often, you would never see your parents or grandparents again because they were going to die there due to the lockdown lasting for six to twelve months.

ZB: You probably weren’t allowed to go to their funerals.

JK: Exactly. Only ten people were allowed at funerals, and families had to choose which siblings could attend. That’s not an Ottawa story, that’s a Toronto story. When the pandemic first hit, a lot of weird decisions were made. Amidst the political radicalism, you would expect a prime minister to stand above it and say, “Let’s be reasonable.” But he jumped in hard on the puritanical stuff. He got caught breaking the rules himself, going to his country house in the midst of it.

ZB: Wow. Can you remind me about the truckers? That was a big issue in Canada, right?

JK: Yeah. It was early 2022, toward the tail end of the pandemic. At the core of the protest were truckers opposing vaccination rules for crossing international borders. Many were sceptical of mandates. I was against the truckers because I thought it was reasonable to require vaccination for international travel. They drove their trucks to Ottawa and essentially took over central Ottawa. As with a lot of these movements, it attracted some fringe elements—there were legitimate racists and people with crazy slogans.

One or two people showed up with swastikas, but the media pretended they were actual Nazis when they were just idiots using the Nazi label to attack Trudeau. The protest became annoying, especially with the constant honking. But Trudeau’s response was worse than the protest itself. He refused to meet with them, treated them like a pestilence, and invoked the Emergencies Act—a law meant for real terrorist threats. Freezing the bank accounts of people who donated to the protest was a civil liberties disaster. No one came out looking good. Trudeau looked irresolute at the start and draconian at the end.

The whole incident encapsulated the poisonous mood in Canada. Trudeau and his circle came off as smug, politically incestuous snobs who held much of the country in contempt. That stereotype persists to this day.

ZB: I can see that. And Trudeau’s tone seems to have shifted recently. Am I right in thinking he’s become less progressive?

JK: Yes. Immigration became a weird issue in Canada where you couldn’t even talk about stricter limits without being labeled xenophobic. Canada brings in about 1 percent of its population annually through immigration. Housing prices have soared, and there’s been a class divide—wealthy people benefit from immigration because it keeps businesses staffed, but it’s tough for those competing for jobs and housing.

ZB: Yeah, it sounds similar to here.

JK: Exactly. Around six to twelve months ago, the political class finally started acknowledging it was okay to talk about limiting immigration because things had gotten so out of hand. The same journalists who once praised high immigration levels suddenly began saying, “Isn’t it great the liberals are admitting we need a course correction?”

Universities that had relied on international students for revenue are now facing cash crunches. My daughters’ university is dealing with this. It’s all a result of liberal mismanagement and groupthink in Canadian politics. Until recently, even common-sense statements were considered unsayable.

ZB: Yeah. And that’s how you ended up at Quillette, right? Because of how the media landscape shifted?

JK: Yeah. My parents, especially my mom, didn’t suffer fools gladly, and I inherited that quality. I was an engineer, then went to law school, but realised I wasn’t suited for law. I started in journalism in 1998 at the National Post. My mom actually got into journalism after I did—she started writing weekly columns in her sixties and became very successful.

ZB: That’s inspiring.

JK: Yeah, she’s more famous than me among conservatives. People often tell me they love her work more than mine!

ZB: That’s sweet.

JK: As for me, after working at the National Post for sixteen years and The Walrus for a couple of years, I thought I’d become a ghostwriter. Then in 2017, I discovered Quillette. I cold-submitted an article on Canadian Indigenous issues, and that’s how I got started here.

ZB: And it’s been seven years now.

JK: Yeah, time flies. It still feels like my new job, but it’s been seven and a half years.

ZB: Well, thank you for the update. It’s been fascinating. For anyone who wants to read it, Jon’s latest piece, “Shame on Us for Believing in Him,” was published on 7 January 2025, on Quillette.com. Thanks so much, Jon. Talk soon.

Shame on Us for Ever Believing Him

Justin Trudeau convinced me he was a sunny patriot who’d unify Canada. What I got instead was a cynical culture warrior who smeared opponents as bigots and defamed my country as a genocide state.

QuilletteJonathan Kay

JK: And I narrated it. Thank you.