New Liberal party Leader Justin Trudeau has never known a life that wasn’t a public one. His birth on Dec. 25, 1971, to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his wife, Margaret, was front-page news. He grew up with a nation discussing the breakup of his parents’ marriage, watching him and his brothers at play and on the campaign trail. Years later, Canadians grieved along with him when brother Michel and, later, Pierre died. Throughout the years, Maclean’s finest reporters—Peter C. Newman, Paul Wells, John Geddes, Jonathon Gatehouse, Scott Feschuk, Aaron Wherry, Colby Cosh, to name only a few—have watched Justin Trudeau, too, from analyzing his eulogy at his father’s funeral to reporting on his leadership bid. Those stories are collected here for the first time, along with photo essays—a vivid evocation of a life and time, one lived largely under the watchful eyes of millions.

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Scott Feschuk is the author of two previous books, Searching For Michael Jackson's Nose (McClelland Stewart, 2003) and How Not to Completely Suck as a New Parent (McClelland Stewart, 2004, with Paul Mather). He is the two-time winner of the Gold Award for Humour at the National Magazine Awards and has written for Maclean's, Sportsnet, the Globe and Mail, National Post and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Feschuk was also chief speechwriter for former Prime Minister Paul Martin.

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Jonathon Gatehouse is a senior correspondent for Maclean’s magazine and was formerly a reporter for the National Post and Montreal’s Gazette. He lives in Toronto with his wife and children, plays hockey three times a week, and has a dog named Wendel.

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John Geddes is an Ottawa writer and journalist. Born in Shawville, Quebec, he grew up in Cochenour, a small mining town in northern Ontario. He has served as Maclean's magazine's bureau chief on Parliament Hill since 2000, and was a 2003 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He lives in Ottawa with his wife and daughter.

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Before turning to fiction, Ken MacQueen spent 15 years as Vancouver bureau chief for Maclean’s, Canada’s newsmagazine, winning multiple National Magazine Awards and nominations. He travelled the world writing features and breaking news for the magazine, and previously for two national news agencies. He also covered nine Olympic Games and drew Jake Ockham’s athletic prowess from tracking elite rowers in training and on podiums in Athens, Beijing and London. He and his wife, Ros Guggi, divide their time between Vancouver's North Shore and British Columbia's Sunshine Coast.

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Peter C. Newman has been writing about Canadian history and politics for half a century. His previous works include the bestselling history of the Hudson Bay Company, Company of Adventurers, as well as books on prime ministers John Diefenbaker, Lester B. Pearson, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and Brian Mulroney. A former editor-in-chief of the Toronto Star and Maclean’s, Newman has won a half dozen of the country’s most illustrious literary awards, including the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize for his memoir, Here Be Dragons: Telling Tales of People, Passion, and Power. He is a Companion of the Order of Canada. Newman lives in Belleville, Ontario.

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Paul Wells is one of Canada’s most experienced political journalists. After many years at Maclean’s, National Post and The Gazette, he now publishes a subscription newsletter at paulwells.substack.com. He is a frequent commentator on French-language and English-language radio and television, and is the author of An Emergency in Ottawa.

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AARON WHERRY is a senior writer with CBC’s Parliament Hill bureau. Previously an associate editor at Maclean’s, he has spent more than a decade writing about the House of Commons and federal politics, including three federal elections and Justin Trudeau’s rise from backbench curiosity to the twenty-third prime minister of Canada. Before coming to Ottawa, Wherry spent four years at the National Post, working as both a sportswriter and a music critic.

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