Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is Fidel Castro’s son.
In September 2024, various customers on X referenced the speculation that Fidel Castro was the daddy of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in response to a immediate asking customers concerning the “goofiest low-stakes conspiracy idea” they consider in:
Snopes first covered this rumor in November 2016, which originated within the (now banned) subreddit r/The_Donald. On Nov. 26, 2016, Trudeau sparked controversy by praising Fidel Castro in a statement concerning the former Cuban dictator’s demise, saying:
Whereas a controversial determine, each Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors acknowledged his large dedication and love for the Cuban individuals who had a deep and lasting affection for ‘el Comandante.’ I do know my father was very proud to name him a good friend and I had the chance to fulfill Fidel when my father handed away. It was additionally an actual honour to fulfill his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro throughout my current go to to Cuba.
Some Canadians (and others) had been angered by what they seen as Trudeau’s humanization of a dictator who had induced profound struggling for his personal individuals. Trudeau’s assertion, in addition to his household’s pleasant historical past with Castro, led to hypothesis {that a} a lot more durable fact lay behind his comfortable phrases.
On Nov. 27, two days after Castro’s demise was introduced, a person on the pro-Donald Trump subreddit /r/The_Donald offered a theory that Justin Trudeau, the son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, was really the love baby of Castro and Margaret Trudeau. The idea rested on three unconnected assertions:
- Margaret Trudeau and Castro met in 1971 and had been shut pals ever after.
- Margaret Trudeau was sexually promiscuous.
- Castro and Justin Trudeau had been related in look.
The Trudeaus had been certainly near Castro, who as soon as described Pierre Trudeau as “a detailed good friend and a unprecedented determine.” Margaret Trudeau was additionally open in her later writings about her numerous previous affairs. And sure, younger Castro and Justin Trudeau may bear a bodily resemblance. The notion that the Trudeaus and the Castros met in 1971, nonetheless, relies what seems to be a willful misreading of a newspaper article by a Reddit person:
So now that we have established the same look, we have to work out if it is even attainable that Fidel met with Margaret earlier than Justin’s conception. Seems he did — in truth, Pierre and Fidel met for the primary time one yr earlier than Justin was born.
Ignoring the organic impossibility of conceiving a toddler a literal yr earlier than that baby was born, the person linked to an article by the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail, describing the primary time the 2 leaders spoke to one another:
Pierre Trudeau’s and Fidel Castro’s paths crossed for the primary time in 1970, when the Canadian authorities sought to barter the exile of members of the FLQ, who had kidnapped British commerce commissioner James Cross. Fidel Castro obliged the Canadian PM by offering a refuge, and in a personal letter Mr. Trudeau later prolonged his heartfelt gratitude.
The 2 leaders’ paths didn’t actually cross at the moment: No head-of-state degree go to occurred between Cuba and Canada in 1970. (This stuff sometimes make huge information.) The primary time Castro and the Trudeaus met face-to-face was a well-known journey made by the Canadian couple to Cuba in 1976. This occasion has been chronicled, together with some purportedly saucy feedback, in a book that has been cited by most of the Trudeau-truthers to recommend sexual attraction between Margaret Trudeau and Castro. However even when true, that aspect is a pink herring, as Justin Trudeau was born effectively earlier than the 1976 assembly.
One does not even must consider any of that, although, as science offers us a tough estimate of when the long run chief of Canada was conceived, and historical past can inform us the place Margaret Trudeau, Pierre Trudeau and Castro had been throughout this window of alternative.
Justin Trudeau was born Dec. 25, 1971. By the use of a tough estimate, we notice {that a} 2013 examine revealed within the journal Human Copy used information from 130 pregnancies to analyze the vary of various being pregnant lengths from conception to delivery and reported a variety of 247 to 284 days:
This can be very unlikely that Justin Trudeau’s delivery fell exterior that gestational vary, which means that Castro and Margaret Trudeau must have conceived their secret love-child between March 16 and April 22, 1971.
It needs to be famous that Margaret and Pierre Trudeau secretly wed on March 4, 1971, and honeymooned till March 8. Once they returned dwelling, Margaret moved in with the prime minister for the primary time. If ever there have been a time to coneive a child and have or not it’s born in late December, it could have been then, as hinted at in a Harper’s Bazaar profile of Margaret Trudeau: “Margaret moved into the prime minister’s official residence, at 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa, and gave delivery to Justin simply 10 months after the marriage, on Christmas Day in 1971.”
If that’s not sufficient proof, or if the prospect of a head of state (or his partner) making secret visits to international nations unnoticed sounds believable, cautious examination of the historic file offers little chronologic room to position Margaret Trudeau and Castro collectively on the time essential to have conceived the kid. Upon their return from their honeymoon, the shock of the Trudeaus’ marriage (she was 22 and he was 51) put them underneath intense media scrutiny, making it unlikely Margaret Trudeau might slip away to Cuba for a tryst unnoticed, since she was now the discuss of the city.
The primary couple made a giant impression at an area sugaring event, for instance, on March 27, and the press (in a testomony to the extent of scrutiny the prime minister’s new spouse obtained) famous that Margaret Trudeau didn’t journey with the prime minister on an April journey to the Niagara area:
Fidel Castro, for his half, seems to have been in Cuba throughout the whole conception window, although experiences of his every day actions are sparse. Castro’s worldwide journey, when it occurred, all the time obtained significant coverage in American media, however there isn’t a point out of such journey throughout this time.
When it comes to public appearances, Castro gave an address to attendees of the “first schooling and tradition congress” on April 1. On April 19, he gave a defiantly anti-American speech that commemorated the tenth anniversary of the defeat of the US‐sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion.
Following Snopes’ authentic publication of this piece, a number of readers discovered an omission in our debunking. Some significantly zealous critics have argued this omission masks a extra believable time wherein a Castro-Trudeau baby might have been conceived — an April journey to the Caribbean dubbed a “second honeymoon.” In our original piece, we said:
For the rest of April, Pierre was busy with governing, as attested to by logs of the Canadian Home of Commons, making it unlikely that his work would take the couple wherever close to Havana.
This assertion was incorrect. The Trudeaus took a visit to a number of Caribbean islands from April 8 to April 18 — a time period per the conception window for Justin Trudeau mentioned above. Primarily based on protection of their actions from 1971, the journey took the couple to Barbados, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago.
Solely one among today, no less than publicly, was devoted to the prime minister’s official duties. On April 15, Pierre Trudeau traveled alone from the island of Tobago, the place he was vacationing along with his new spouse, to Trinidad, the place he met with the prime minister of the island nation for lunch. He returned to his spouse within the afternoon.
One April 13, 1971, newspaper article has been cited by a number of adherents to the speculation that Castro and Margaret Trudeau conceived Justin Trudeau on this second honeymoon as a result of it describes the couple’s journey to an “unidentified close by island” [emphasis ours]:
Prime Minister Trudeau and his spouse left right here Monday by chartered aircraft on a fast facet journey to an unidentified close by island. They arrived right here Thursday on a short “second honeymoon,” and have reportedly been staying at a personal residence on the island’s posh west coast.
Given the secrecy, some Reddit customers questioned whether or not this might have been the day that Castro and Margaret Trudeau crossed paths, presumably in Cuba. That was not the case. Whereas that location was certainly saved secret on April 13, reporting from April 16 of their journey makes it clear the undisclosed island was St. Vincent:
The Trudeaus have already got visited Barbados and spent a day swimming off Bequia, a tiny island within the Grenadines, and close by islets when they visited St. Vincent Monday.
Talking of the April journey, one Reddit person defined that “That is the very interval [during] which Margaret was in numerous Caribbean islands east of Cuba.” The notion that this journey to the Caribbean offered a novel alternative for a Castro-Trudeau love baby should be tempered by some apparent realities.
One, whereas Cuba and the areas visited by the Trudeaus are all islands, they aren’t significantly shut to at least one one other. In actual fact, Ottawa is closer to Havana than both Barbados or Trinidad and Tobago.
And secondly, this declare is an answer to an issue that doesn’t exist. The almost definitely time period wherein Trudeau was conceived stays late March 1971, which occurs to be when the couple started formally dwelling collectively after their honeymoon.
There is no such thing as a cause to suppose, or proof to assist the notion, that Margaret Trudeau met Castro earlier than 1976 — years after Justin Trudeau’s delivery — and there’s no believable circumstance throughout which a gathering between Castro and Margaret Trudeau might have secretly occurred in the course of the biologically mandatory time that accommodates their recognized public schedules. Even the unique poster of the Reddit thread appeared to cede this level:
There are nonetheless some timeline points – something that may place them collectively across the time of conception would seal the deal, however I am assured in what I’ve discovered to this point.
For these causes, and since the declare originated from somebody who misstated the yr wherein the Trudeaus and Castro really first met in individual, the notion that Justin Trudeau is a toddler of Castro and Margaret Trudeau is unfounded.
