The public's business... or none of our business?

Margaret Trudeau dances at Studio 54 in New York City on the eve of her husband's 1979 election defeat. (CP PHOTO/AP)

Private versus public is not always a sharp distinction for those Canadians who choose to run for office. Politicians can often be heard railing against the media, whom they accuse of misrepresenting them.

Yet compared to other countries, Canada demands little scrutiny of the personal lives of its leaders.

In 1977, on Margaret and Pierre Trudeau's sixth wedding anniversary, the cracks in their marriage were showing. She famously flew off to a Rolling Stones concert at Toronto's El Mocambo club, then hung out with the band at her hotel.

Uncharacteristically, the Canadian media pounced. A sad and weary-sounding Margaret was blasted over the airwaves.

Reporter: "Is your marriage happy?"
Margaret: "You guys are so rude. I have no comment to make about my marriage, about my life."

The public discomfort with the reporting was palpable. But it was a time of social upheaval that spilled over into a media hungry to break out of a stuffy past.

Let's face it: we're still pretty uptight when it comes to what we really want to know about the private lives of our politicians.

"I would say, in many other countries other than Canada, including Italy and France, these are countries where politics is entertainment and sport," says pollster Nik Nanos.

"There's just not as much of an appetite for those juicy personal tidbits in Canada compared with other countries."

So when do we want the dirt on our leaders? Mostly when their private lives come into direct contact with their public choices.

Case in point: MP Belinda Stronach's 2005 decision to cross the floor, leaving a stunned Conservative party and a shocked boyfriend, MP Peter MacKay, in one fell swoop.

"I'm going to go home and maybe walk my dog," sulked MacKay. "Dogs are loyal."

Compare that media storm to last week's coverage of MacKay's engagement to his longtime girlfriend, CTV news executive Jana Juginovic. It rated a passing mention. Gone was the apparent connection to politics, along with much of the drama. Still, is there more to our aversion to politicians' private lives?

"There is definitely a weird 1960's-esque vibe among the Parliament Hill media," says Harris MacLeod.

MacLeod is a reporter for The Hill Times newspaper and also a gossip columnist. He says his gossip column is the first thing people read each week.

"Part of it is just a stodgy old polite Canadian-ness. The other side of it is, let's not kid ourselves, this is a deeply incestuous environment."

So Canadians may be stodgy but journalists are also overly cautious. Either way, it's hard not to feel like something is missing.

"There's a deeply human element to all of this. And unfortunately that's missing in a lot of political reporting in Canada," says MacLeod.

Unlike the United States, Canada has no cottage industry built around dishing every detail of the private lives of every person who runs for office, let alone wins.

Still, maybe there's a simpler explanation for our disinterest. Is it possible that our politicians, aren't really all that interesting? Dramatic personal scandals seem the stuff of US or British politicians, not ours.

Take the example of the UK's David Blunkett. The blind MP fathered a child with someone else's wife. Then, he launched a legal challenge to get parental access after DNA tests showed the child was his. Hard to imagine that kind of thing happening in the Great White North.

Still, even when the headlines are shocking, such as recent charges against former MP Rahim Jaffer for drunk driving and cocaine possession, Canadians seem willing to turn away.

Jaffer's former caucus colleauges refused to talk about his plight, the media took its cues from the politicians, and the public didn't complain.

But the public and the press were all over Prime Minister Stephen Harper's musical debut at the National Arts Centre. As Nanos argues, how well we know our politicians comes down to choice-- choices made by the public, by journalists, but also by the politicians themselves.

"So for this particular Prime Minister, playing the piano at the NAC was likely a very big moment for a very private person," he says. "The big factor in the equation is not just relevance, but how does he or she feel about making certain parts of their lives public?"

At the end of the day, it seems our desire to know our politicians intimately may be forever matched by a strong resistance to the idea that a public life should be completely public. And that may be a mixed blessing.

You can listen to Louise Elliott's report this Saturday on The House.