Justin Trudeau is rich, even very rich. He's a millionaire.
Trudeau provided a rare disclosure of his personal finances to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper this week to end all speculation about his bank account.
He's collected about $750,000 in campaign contributions so far and people were wondering where it would all end up.
Justin Trudeau inherited a fortune from his late father Pierre Trudeau which is administered by the investment firm Jarislowsky Fraser in Montreal. . Now the inheritance is worth about $ 1.2 million.
But the politician people are forever calling "the young Trudeau" (who is actually 41 years old) also made a fortune also his own before he became a politician.
Justin Trudeau was an accomplished public speaker after teaching high school in British Columbia and before he became a federal politician, and especially before he entered the race last year for the Liberal Party leadership.
Trudeau earned in the neighborhood of $ 450,000 per year as a guest speaker at major conferences. He was one of the best after-dinner speakers in Canada.
The good ones, such as Trudeau, or Conservative senator Mike Duffy can earn thousands of dollars per speaking engagement.
In his interview with the Ottawa daily Trudeau took care to explain that he is not as rich as the one-point-two million may seem.
Trudeau told the reporter Glen McGregor: "People are shocked that I don't live in a castle.
Actually Trudeau lives in semi-detached house with his wife Sophie and their two children in his mid-town Montreal riding of Papineau, one of the poorest ridings in Quebec.
The house cost him about $800,000 but it has a mortgage on it of about $ 600,000.
He joked that there's no way for him to go waste away a year in St. Tropez or buy a boat and sail it around the world.
Trudeau explained that he worked in a school in British Columbia for a while before becoming a conference speaker. He was also a white-water river guide and during some summers, while he taught, he also worked as a monitor in a summer camp for children.
The family fortune comes from not from Pierre Trudeau, but from the grandfather Charles-Émile Trudeau, who owned the chain of Champlain gas stations in Quebec which he later sold at a profit to Imperial Oil.
He used the money to buy into Belmont Park in Montreal, and pick up a share of the "Montreal Royals" baseball team.
Today, what remains of Trudeau wealth is in the hands of Justin and his brother Alexandre (Sacha) the filmmaker.
At least part of the money could end one day help elect a second prime minister.
