Grandfathers and grandchildren in the Parliament of Canada.

• Author: Gagnon, Jacques P.

Building on an earlier study of Canadian parliamentarians who were part of the same nuclear families, the author explores grandfathers and grandchildren who served as parliamentarians.

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In an earlier article, I presented a comparative study of Canadian parliamentarians who lived under the same roof (spouses, parents-children, brothers). (1) In this study, I looked at grandfather-grandchild relationships in Parliament. When reporters ask Justin Trudeau how his father influenced his own political career, he tells them that they should not overlook the influence of his maternal grandfather, James Sinclair. Born in Scotland in 1908, Sinclair was a trained civil engineer. He served as a squadron leader in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, and he was elected as the Liberal Member for Vancouver North in 1940 and then for Coast-Capilano in 1949. From 1949 to 1952 he was the Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Finance, and then from 1952 to 1957 he served as the Minister of Fisheries. His political career ended nine months later with the second election of John D. Diefenbaker's Conservative government. He died in 1984 at the age of 75. (2)

The younger Trudeau credits his people skills and the ease with which he works a crowd to his grandfather. It is a commonly held belief that grandparents can pass on physical features and even personality traits to their grandchildren. Although I did not go that far with my research, I did look at whether there are any political constants to be found in the family ties in Canada's Parliament since 1867. I first looked at the nine three-generation families of parliamentarians (grandfathers, sons or sons-in-law, grandchildren) separately from the 23 two-generation families (grandfathers and grandchildren). I did not see any major differences between the two sub-groups, so I continued my analysis of the 32 families together. (3)

As expected, there is a generation gap between when grandfathers entered politics and when their grandchildren did. Most grandfathers began their political careers before 1935, and most grandchildren after 1935.

Periods during which the 32 grandfathers and 33 grandchildren became parliamentarians, by historical period

First we will look at how many grandchildren were able to know their grandfathers. If a grandchild was born at least five years before the death of his or her grandfather, then the grandchild would have likely had the opportunity to have some memory of him. This was the case for two-thirds of grandchildren (23 out of 33), although this does not appear to have had any influence on their political careers: 19 grandchildren entered Parliament at a later age than did their grandfathers; only six grandchildren represented the same riding as their grandfathers; and 10 were affiliated with a different party. (4) Moreover, only four grandchildren experienced a political career of the same duration as their grandfather (with a gap of one or two years). (5)

Quebec is the province with the most grandfathers and grandchildren as parliamentarians, and more ? grandfathers and grandchildren were affiliated with the Liberals than with the...