📍24 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, ON K1M 1M4, Canada
1971 – 1984“Justin Trudeau was born on Christmas Day 1971, while his father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was Prime Minister, and he came home from hospital to 24 Sussex Drive, the prime ministerial residence on a cliff above the Ottawa River. Apart from a short break in 1979 and 1980, when his father was out of office, it was his home until he was twelve. He shared it with his younger brothers, Alexandre, known as Sacha, and Michel, and the three boys roamed its grand rooms, gardens and riverside grounds, wrestled on mats in the basement and played on the driveway under the eye of the RCMP. His father had an indoor swimming pool built in the 1970s and swam his laps each evening, and the boys were expected to join him in the pool or on the trampoline. Pierre took them canoeing and camping, taught them French and English with equal seriousness, and expected high standards. Famous visitors passed through; Justin later recalled being told, at eleven, that Princess Diana was coming over quietly to swim. But the house also held sadness: his parents separated in 1977, and his mother's struggles, which she later spoke about publicly, shaped his childhood. In 1984 his father retired and the family moved to Montreal. Justin later wrote about his years at Sussex Drive in his memoir, Common Ground. He became a teacher, then a politician, and in 2015 he became Prime Minister himself, more than forty years after first living as a child in the prime minister's house.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today