A Leader Looks Back

Former Prime Minister Jean Chrtien on advising Justin Trudeau, tiring of Trump and telling his tales

- Courtney Shea

Your book, My Stories, My Times, comes out 25 years after you were first elected prime minister. What motivated this moment of self-reflection?

When I’m sitting with family or friends after dinner, they often ask me questions about my 40 years in public life—and I find I have a lot of stories to tell. My grandchildren told me, “Grand-papa, these stories will disappear. Why don’t you write them down?” And so, for a full year, I wrote something every week. The subject varied, as if I had been writing a column for a newspaper.

You mention that writing is something you would do when you had tired of the “surrealist vagaries” of Donald Trump. Care to expand?