'Why does my daddy have so much work': ex-Mountie recalls Justin Trudeau, the boy
For retired Mountie Raymond LeBlanc, seeing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on television brings back special memories.
For two years, LeBlanc spent every waking moment at 24 Sussex Drive with Justin and his two brothers.
LeBlanc was leader of the security detail for the family of the late Pierre Trudeau,
The Moncton man had eight years of service with the Mounties when he was offered a choice between several high-profile roles working for the prime minister.
"It wasn't a hard choice," said LeBlanc, who had always loved working with children.
Justin wanted dad
At times, watching over the Trudeau children was more fun than it was work — despite the responsibility, LeBlanc said.
He recalled how Justin would get bored when he couldn't spend time with his father.
"It's summer, have fun,'' LeBlanc told the child. ''You're bored again? So your dad's working again, eh? He's got work to do, eh?''
It seemed Justin didn't understand what could keep his father so busy.
''Why does my daddy have so much work?" he would ask LeBlanc.
Justin was five years old when LeBlanc started working for the family in 1977.
LeBlanc remembers meeting Margaret Trudeau for the first time at a function, just before he started the job. They laughed about his having to look after Justin.
"Well, I hope he won't be too much trouble for you,'' she told him.
''I said, 'Well, I'll tell you right now, ma'am, if he is, I'll throw him in the trunk like any other kid."
LeBlanc said he always insisted the five other officers on the security detail treat the Trudeau children as kids, not VIPs, and act like friends, not police officers.
Margaret Trudeau, he said, never liked being accompanied by security, and she often tried to go out without being escorted — until Pierre Trudeau put his foot down.
''He said, 'Listen, you don't want security, your choice. But my children will have bodyguards,''' LeBlanc said.
Like his father
LeBlanc said he never imagined Justin Trudeau would become prime minister, but he wasn't entirely surprised when it happened.
"He's smart, he's witty, he's so many ways like his dad,'' LeBlanc said. ''You know when I see him do stuff, I think of his dad a lot."
LeBlanc said he can't forget the bond he shared with the children, even down to his last encounter with Justin Trudeau, when they ran into each other a few years after he had stopped working for the family.
"Ray!'' he remembers hearing someone call.
''I turn around — boom!'' LeBlanc said. ''Somebody jumped right in my arm. I didn't even see him coming the way he did that. 'What's this, there's a grown boy in my arms.' And it was Justin.
"That was the love that we had for each other, I guess. The love he had for me. He missed me, I guess.''
