Karen Leibowitcz Jul 16, 2020
In the age of sloppy journalism, few authors are sloppier than those who claim they ‘debunked’ the story that Fidel Castro is Justin Trudeau’s biological father. They recite the Canadian governments’ official travel dates to Cuba and painfully avoid the Trudeaus’ extensive personal trip to the Caribbean trip in Spring 1971. It is a fact the Trudeaus were in the Caribbean in Spring 1971. It is a fact they adored Castro. It is a fact the Trudeaus were swingers. This is what you need to know.
First, Margaret Trudeau, Pierre Trudeau, and Fidel Castro were all notoriously sexually promiscuous. Margaret Trudeau was a partier who unquestionably had sex with men while married to Pierre. Nobody knows if Pierre objected. They met when he was 48 and she was 18. They got married when he was 53 and she was 23. Their marriage surprised Canada because Pierre had been a lifelong playboy with no wife or children. He would be turning 60 when she was barely out of her 20’s. She publicly states today she suffered from bipolar disorder and self-control issues. She smuggled drugs in the Prime Minister’s official government luggage. She sneaked away from official functions to get high. She partied scantily clad at Studio 54. She became embroiled in a scandal for having sex with Ted Kennedy (gross). According to Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Pierre broke up with her while she was having an affair with Ronnie Wood. The list goes on.
Pierre Trudeau slept around too. According to a 2009 Globe and Mail article by Margaret Wente, actress Margot Kidder (Superman, Superman II), classical guitarist Liona Boyd, and actress Kim Cattrall all claimed to have slept with him at some time. Pierre Trudeau biographer John English states the “evidence is overwhelming” that he slept with Barbara Streisand. The record is not immediately clear how much of that happened before the couple was separated, but before she moved out of the house he was entertaining three women downstairs at a time:
He often invited two girlfriends to the same event. Allan Gotlieb, his ambassador to Washington, complained about one dinner he hosted for Mr. Trudeau because he had three girlfriends there…he carried on downstairs even though Margaret [while separated] was still in residence upstairs.
Fidel Castro put them both to shame. His sexual appetite was so legendary this article cannot efficiently capture it. Suffice it to say, he endeavored to have sex with two new women every day and sent aides to fetch them. He fathered 11 acknowledged children and rumors are he has multiple times that many bastards.
Second, the Trudeaus adored Castro. They, their aides and friends all said so. According to John English’s “Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliot Trudeau 1968–2000” they were charmed by Castro and made several trips to embargo-era Cuba just to see him. In 2000, Castro made a rare appearance out of Cuba to attend Pierre’s funeral in Canada. On his visit, Margaret welcomed the leader at his hotel on behalf of the Trudeaus. They demonstrated a striking level of familiarity before even getting off the tarmac of their 1976 trip. They all took photographs together. The Trudeaus introduced Castro to their children. And when Castro died, Justin Trudeau was the only leader of the Western World to give him an overwhelmingly positive eulogy without addressing his misdeeds.
Third, the timing is uncanny. This is the part about which ‘debunkers’ intentionally mislead readers. Justin Trudeau was born on Christmas day, 1971. In order for his father to be Fidel Castro, his mother would have to be somewhere close to Cuba in March and April 1971.
She was.
In April 1971, the Trudeaus took a long “second honeymoon” all around the Caribbean. According to Wikipedia, they visited one island they declined to disclose. It is the only island they did not disclose. From Wikipedia:
Footnote 19 of the same Wikipedia article cites to a April 13, 1971 article from The Ottawa Journal. The article states that the Trudeaus were visiting an unidentified island in the Caribbean and wanted the press to give them privacy:
To be clear: they disclosed all the other locations they visited but asked the press for privacy when they went to the “unidentified” island. Come on.
Justin Trudeau was born 8 1/2 months later. In 1976, Pierre eagerly became the first NATO leader to travel to Cuba. He brought his wife. Before even leaving the tarmac, both Trudeaus were showing an unusual amount of familiarity with Fidel considering he was a national leader they just allegedly met. Within hours of their first official meeting, Margaret was photographed intimately touching and holding Fidel Castro with both arms. The Trudeaus announced they had become besties with the dictator and sang his praises during the height of his human rights violations.
Due to his age and lack of previous children, rumors began to spread that Pierre was infertile and that Castro and others were the biological fathers of his children. Perhaps that was unfair at the time. But then Justin Trudeau improbably grew up to look like this:
And this:
And this:
Not like this:
So what is all this talk about “debunking” the claim? It could not be less compelling. 100% of the ‘debunking’ articles avoid addressing the Caribbean trip altogether. For example, in Vice’s article, “We Investigated Those Damning Rumors About Fidel Castro Being Justin Trudeau’s Real Dad” by Drew Brown, Brown does not investigate anything. He just mocks the story and then abruptly states this:
Oh, wait. Justin was born December 25, 1971, nine months after Pierre and Margaret’s honeymoon in British Columbia and long before the couple travelled to Cuba. Dang.
I guess you actually can’t believe everything that semi-professional agitators post on the internet.
Not a very impressive argument, Brown. Brown’s so-called ‘investigation’ altogether missed an obvious Wikipedia article showing the Trudeaus were in the Caribbean in Spring 1971, with citations to the actual reporters covering it. His uncited claim that Justin was born “long before the couple traveled to Cuba” is just a recitation of the official dates Trudeau visited in his official capacity as prime minister. He provides no evidence the Trudeaus had never been there before. No evidence they had not met Castro before. No evidence Castro never travelled to see them in the Caribbean. He altogether avoids the story he claims he disproved and then tries to do a mic drop. Not very impressive at all.
All of the articles ‘debunking’ story follow the same format. They all come from left-leaning websites who sympathize with Trudeau. They all recite the official 1976 travel dates of Pierre Trudeau as Prime Minister as though that proves they never traveled to or around Cuba on any prior date. They altogether avoid addressing the easily researchable Caribbean trip in Spring 1971. That is strange for authors who claim to have the truth on their sides.
Nothing has been debunked. If anything, the intellectual dishonesty of avoiding the very story makes it seem more convincing.
That is not to say there are no exaggerations and falsehoods supporting the story. But they are not nearly so avoidant or look so desperate to kill a story. For example, in 2018, internet users spread a rumor that Fidel Castro’s recently deceased son Fidel Angel Castro Diaz-Balart (“Fidelito”) announced Justin Trudeau was his half-brother in his suicide note. No major news sources support that claim and researching it leads to a dead-end. Another website gives a devastatingly compelling argument in favor of the story before sabotaging all its credibility by claiming Margaret Trudeau’s family were members of the Illuminati. That is a non-starter for this author.
That being said, the exaggerations and painful avoidance of the story’s ‘debunkers’ are far more suspicious. An article written by Alex Kasprak for leftist ‘fact-checking’ website Snopes.com declares the story “false,” but tries to mislead readers about its supporting points. Kasprak omits discussions of the Trudeaus’ Spring 1971 vacation and then relies on its own omission to say Margaret Trudeau could not have absconded from Canada at the time. Okay, but she was not in Canada. Kasprak also suggests Margaret would have to sneak away from Pierre, but the premise that Pierre objected is not necessary to the story. After all it could have been Pierre’s idea. Kasprak does admit Justin Trudeau would have to have been conceived “between March 16 and April 22,” so why avoid addressing that the Trudeaus within spitting distance of Cuba during that time? Similarly, AP News and affiliates write headlines such as “No, Fidel Castro is not Canada PM Trudeau’s father,” yet their articles simply recount the improbability of the Diaz-Balart suicide note. Each ‘debunker’ makes a bold claim and then avoids the very story they claim to debunk.
Perhaps the strangest denial comes from the Canadian government itself. In February 2018, the Diaz-Balart rumor prompted the Canadian government to publicly deny the story. Federal governments in Western civilizations do not deny urban legends. The story clearly got under the skin of someone in the Canadian parliament. Why would anyone in the Canadian government be so sensitive to a mere internet rumor?
The story is perfectly plausible. Pierre was an aging playboy who had fathered no known offspring despite being sexually promiscuous his whole adult life. Having recently become Prime Minister, it suited him to get married and demonstrate stability. He evidently wanted a family because that is exactly what he started. Sperm banks barely existed back then. If an infertile old man wanted to have a family, his wife had to do it the old-fashioned way.
Margaret was a 23-year-old wild child who liked doing it the old-fashioned way. She had not finished doing drugs or sowing her wild oats. She was clearly attracted to men in positions of power, even some who were old and unattractive. If Ted Kennedy met her qualifications as a sexual partner, Castro was bigger, stronger, thinner, handsomer, and more powerful. From the photos it seems obvious she was attracted to him.
Today we might remember Fidel Castro as an old man, but he was one of the most impressive people in the world back then, especially to fellow Marxists like the Trudeaus. He forcefully deposed a brutal dictator with a band of rag-tag rebels. He turned Cuba into the Western world’s first Marxist country. He beat the Americans in an armed invasion by personally commanding the battle in a tank. He survived CIA coups and assassination attempts. He outlived two Kennedy brothers behind those attempts. He was smart, charming, and funny. He was 6’3, strong, and an athlete who sported the frame of an American football player. He looked like he could beat up any other word leader, much less any competitor for Margaret Trudeau’s attention. He was full of bravado, confidence, and masculinity and smoked cigars like a baller. Why would Pierre Trudeau choose anyone else to be the biological father of his children?