The Liberal Party sent to the woodshed in 2006 — and told, decisively, to stay there in 2008 and 2011 —  has been welcomed back to the government side of the House of Commons.

Not just conditionally invited, but embraced, with a bigger, broader majority than pollsters or even the most optimistic Liberal strategists predicted.

• Live blog recap, results and more
• Who's in and who's out: election night's big wins and losses
• Terry Milewski: Stephen Harper's legacy: Good, bad and a dose of ugly

Surprising as it might have seemed at first, the majority streamed in from both old and new directions on Monday night, built on foundations from governments past, but supported with fresh seats from places unaccustomed to voting for Trudeau's party in recent memory.

No worries about building a properly representative national cabinet for this new prime minister: every province and all three territories are sending at least one Liberal to the 42nd Parliament.

• Conservative's Leona Aglukkaq out as Liberals sweep the North

Atlantic Canada sweep

Former television host Seamus O'Regan snatched St. John's South-Mount Pearl for the Liberals, one of two ridings Liberals took over from New Democrats in Newfoundland. (CBC)

The flood of red seats rose first in the East, a region pollsters had predicted would favour the Liberals, but not in this magnitude. Only Liberals were left standing.

Outgoing cabinet minister Peter MacKay's Central Nova riding went Liberal by the kind of margin MacKay used to enjoy as a Conservative. He called it a "sea of change."

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"We're used to high tides here in Atlantic Canada. This is not what we had hoped for at all," MacKay said on the CBC News election special. "People were looking for something different."

Lost in the tide were NDP team anchors like Nova Scotia's Megan Leslie, the party's deputy leader, and Peter Stoffer, viewed as one of the most popular, constituency-first MPs on the Hill.

But when even faithful New Brunswick Conservative seats turned red, the hints of broad change truly materialized.

"When people wanted to change the Harper government in Atlantic Canada they saw a dynamic, new-generation leader with new ideas, who was positive," said Liberal Dominic LeBlanc, a longtime family friend of Trudeau's dating back to their fathers' political careers, and likely to be a senior New Brunswick cabinet minister.

Francophone Quebec returns

Liberals breezed to victory on their traditionally friendly turf on the Island of Montreal, even giving NDP Leader Tom Mulcair a bit of a scare in Outremont earlier in the evening.

But perhaps the most extraordinary story of the Trudeau majority is a return to the kind of support his father Pierre used to pull in Quebec. Francophones, always an integral part of a credible national government, have, if not forgotten, then at least forgiven past Liberal sins. Compared with the 2015 alternatives, they've decided to sign back on.

• Stunning Liberal gains in Quebec come at the expense of NDP

The much-discussed three- and four-way races anticipated in Quebec appeared to break often in the Liberals' favour, with 40 seats in total, more than three-quarters of which represented gains — much more support than the party enjoyed during its previous Liberal governments under Jean Chrétien in the '90s, when the Bloc Québécois held a lock on the vast majority of francophone seats.

Gaspésie-Îles-de-le-Madeleine was the first Quebec riding to swing for the New Democrats in 2011. In 2015, Diane Lebouthillier's win was only the beginning for the Liberals outside Montreal. (Marika Wheeler/CBC News)

The BQ staged a modest but incomplete comeback: its 10 seats going forward are more than its four after 2011, and two at dissolution, but leader Gilles Duceppe's personal comeback failed in his downtown Montreal riding, and the party still won't have official party status in the Commons.

The New Democrats' orange wave of 2011 — which came at the expense of the BQ — crashed across Quebec in 2015, with all but 16 of the 58 seats won then slipping from their hands.

Former leader and party elder Stephen Lewis said he thought the niqab controversy did real damage in Quebec.

"It's a testament to Tom Mulcair, he didn't move, he showed he had real integrity and principle, but somewhere, somewhere, we went slightly off the rails," Lewis said.

On a rough night elsewhere in Canada, the Conservative campaign's relative emphasis on the ridings around Quebec City earned it modest success, with its best-ever finish during Stephen Harper's tenure: 12 seats.

Fortress Ontario's red bricks

Jean Chrétien's majority governments in the '90s were built around Ontario —most famously, his 101-seat-strong Ontario caucus after the 1997 vote.

Pollsters forecast a strong performance and the Ontario returns did not disappoint: 80 seats at the end of the night, in comparison with the Conservatives' 33 and the NDP's eight.

Rookie politician and former Toronto police chief Bill Blair won the riding of Scarborough Southwest Monday night in a Liberal sweep of the city. (CBC News)

Trudeau's caucus is not only urban and stretches far beyond Toronto — although as expected, the Greater Toronto Area did overwhelmingly swing to Liberal candidates, at the expense of Tory cabinet ministers like Joe Oliver and Julian Fantino.

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Former finance minister Jim Flaherty's Whitby seat also switched sides.

NDP veterans like Peggy Nash and Olivia Chow failed to buck the current of progressive voters decamping en masse.

Northern and eastern Ontario seats, including many in Ottawa, turned Liberal, as did a handful of urban seats in 519 centres like London and Kitchener-Waterloo.

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"They have received a clear mandate to govern from the people of Canada," said Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, who personally endorsed Trudeau and is expected to benefit politically from the federal party's election in key areas like pension reform.

"I look forward to working in co-operation with our new federal partner," Wynne said in a statement, as Trudeau's seat count exceeded her provincial majority tally from 2014.

Winnipeg, Calgary breakthroughs

While rural seats across the Prairies remained elusive for the Liberals, the future cabinet will not be built without the West.

The city of Winnipeg marched decisively into the fold, with all six urban seats joining a Prairie caucus that is at least more of the size his father enjoyed when Justin was born in the early '70s.

• Liberals make big gains in Winnipeg with Robert-Falcon Ouellette, MaryAnn Mihychuk

Robert-Falcon Ouellette defeated veteran NDP incumbent Pat Martin in the downtown riding of Winnipeg Centre. (CBC)

Saskatchewan's Ralph Goodale, a former finance minister likely to return to the Commons front row, remains a lone strawberry in the blueberry patch of Saskatchewan's seat count, although the NDP had small breakthroughs in Saskatoon West and the province's northern seat.

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Highly symbolic victories in urban Alberta also boost the regional credibility of Trudeau's future government.

The large rallies in Edmonton and Calgary in the campaign's dying days are now explained: not only Anne McLellan's former seat in downtown Edmonton and a second, late squeaker of a win in Edmonton Mill Woods, but also two (nearly three) ridings in Calgary have broken the stereotype and parted from the Conservatives.

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Helped by Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi's enthusiasm for positive, inclusive politics, the Liberals found the progressive, urban Albertan audience they always hoped lay dormant through their long exile from Canada's energy heartland.

Greater Vancouver's final wave

Trudeau may feel a sense of personal pride at having his party now represent once more his maternal grandfather Jimmy Sinclair's seat of North Vancouver, the site of his final rally and the place he calls his "second home."

Liberal Harjit Sajjan defeated Conservative Wai Young in Vancouver South. Billed as a star Liberal recruit, he's expected to be cabinet material. (Kirk Williams/CBC)

Eighteen seats in B.C., covering plenty of new ground in Greater Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, sealed the deal for his majority. 

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And up the Fraser Canyon and skipping over to Kelowna, rookie Liberals are heading to Ottawa.

Only on Vancouver Island — where a NDP sweep was averted only by Green Party Leader Elizabeth May's seat — were the Liberals thwarted.

• Elizabeth May re-elected, but party fails to win 2nd seat

Nevertheless, B.C. divided its loyalties across all three main federal parties, with the Conservatives retaining some strength in the centre and north of the province.

But by the end of the night, Conservative strength in Greater Vancouver had slipped over the horizon, with only a couple of suburban seats spared in the sunset's red glow.

Stephen Harper was upbeat in the face of a one-sided election defeat, but will step down as Conservative leader following the result.

Conservative Party president John Walsh released a short statement shortly before Harper took the stage in Calgary, indicating Harper had instructed him to reach out to the elected caucus to appoint an interim leader and begin the next leadership selection process. The party is expected to issue a further statement on that process Tuesday morning.

Harper, who was seeking a fourth consecutive term as prime minister since 2006, enthusiastically greeted supporters before taking the podium in "our home, our Calgary" for his concession speech.

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Harper did not mention his political future in his speech. He said he had spoken to and congratulated Justin Trudeau, the fourth Liberal leader he has faced in a federal election.

The Conservative leader said it was an electoral result he would "accept without hesitation," and he pledged to help Trudeau with the transition of power.

Harper had led the party to increases in seat totals in three consecutive elections. But in this marathon campaign, the party's attempt to paint Trudeau as too inexperienced for the highest office in the land proved unsuccessful.

Harper has spent over nine years in power and 13 years as a party leader, having officially become leader of the Opposition as Alliance leader in May 2002.

'We put everything on the table'

Harper, 56, called it "an incredible honour" to serve as prime minister of the country.

"We put everything on the table, we gave everything we have to give, and we have no regrets whatsoever," he said of the 78-day campaign.

"The disappointment you also feel is my responsibility and mine only," he told supporters.

Harper thanked his wife, Laureen, and teen children, Ben and Rachel, who were in elementary school when he was first sworn in as prime minister in 2006, for their support in "making everything possible."

Stephen Harper and his wife, Laureen, greet supporters in the Calgary Heritage riding prior to the Conservative leader conceding defeat. (Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press)

Harper heralded his government's accomplishments over the years, including its fiscal management of the country, job creation, a variety of trade agreements Canada has struck with partners around the globe and a strengthening of the Canadian Forces.

The Conservatives won 166 seats in the 2011 election, their only majority with Harper at the helm, but were poised to lose dozens of seats as of early Tuesday.

Harper, who in previous election night speeches promised to unite Canada and lead an inclusive government, was accused of divisiveness during the campaign due to the party's slow and inconsistent response to the Syrian refugee crisis and their ongoing court battle over the wearing of the niqab at citizenship ceremonies.

Alberta was a beach head for the party, however. Health Minister Rona Ambrose and Defence Minister Jason Kenney won their seats, while other members of Harper's cabinet — Michelle Rempel, Kevin Sorenson, Deepak Obhrai — were re-elected.

Northeastern B.C., and southern Saskatchewan also went heavily blue, but east of southern Manitoba, there was little for the Conservatives to cheer about.

The Conservative leader had told Peter Mansbridge of CBC's The National during the campaign that he had no intention of trying to form a coalition if his party didn't finish first in seats.

"My position has always been if we win the most seats, I will expect to form the government and if we don't, I won't," he said.

Forming the Opposition

Harper in his concession speech pledged to help his party become an effective force as the Opposition and to prepare it for the next federal election.

"When the next time comes, this party will offer Canada a strong and clear alternative, based on our Conservative values," he said.

Harper comfortably won his Calgary Heritage riding and will continue to serve as MP in the immediate future, The Canadian Press reported. He received over 63 per cent of the vote with over 80 per cent of polls reported.

"This is the seventh mandate you've given me, and it remains a true privilege to serve this vibrant city in the Parliament of Canada," he told his local supporters.

Harper exited the stage as Collective Soul's Better Now blared in the background.

A campaign official told CBC News that Harper didn't mention the party's imminent leadership process because he wanted to focus on Conservative accomplishments in his speech, and not his individual future.

It was Harper's fifth federal election, his first loss since he tried to unseat Liberal Leader Paul Martin in 2004.

Harper won the leadership contest for the Conservative Party which resulted in 2004 from the merger of the Alliance and the remnants of the struggling Progressive Conservative Party.

In defeat, Stephen Harper showed something he often lacked in power: grace.

He made his exit with grace towards both winners and losers. "The people are never wrong," he said.

Simultaneously, a party statement said the search is on for a new interim leader. And with that, Harper was gone, leaving no further doubt about the question the NDP posed to voters in their ads: "Had enough yet?"

After nine years and eight months in office, Stephen Harper finally turned off too many voters. Soon, he'll be hurling his political obituaries across the room.

Time, of course, may cool the steaming dislike of Harper's abrasive brand of politics. Perhaps his creditable record in domestic and foreign affairs will be remembered more fondly when the alternative becomes clear. 

For now, though, the sheer nastiness of the Harper style looms large in his defeat.

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He brought taxes down as he promised. He was bold without being visionary in foreign affairs. But there's no way around it: Harper's thuggish political tactics alienated friends and energized enemies.

Time and again throughout this long campaign voters said they wanted him gone. 

More than they wanted anyone else to win, they wanted Harper to lose. They'd even vote Liberal if that's what it took.

'I can't even get my friends to like me'

Stephen Joseph Harper, of course, never set out to be lovable. He always knew he would rile the nabobs of the establishment, the media, the bar and the academy.

So what? He was out to reform a nation and a world that he deemed infested with entitled liberals who coddled criminals, ran up debt and cozied up to dictators. He knew he'd be the skunk at the party.

Consider his deft and poignant 2014 eulogy for a fallen comrade, Jim Flaherty, in which Harper noted the contrast between himself and the gregarious ex-finance minister who charmed his way through the great recession.

"Jim, as fiercely partisan as he was," said Harper, "was also genuinely liked and respected by his opponents — liked by his enemies. That's something in this business — something I envy. I can't even get my friends to like me."

Nobody stood up and shouted, "No! We love you!"

Indeed, have we ever seen a prime minister so bereft of the back-slapping, shoulder-punching, baby-kissing arts of human contact? Even the cerebral Pierre Trudeau enjoyed a pirouette at the palace. Brian Mulroney and Jean Chrétien seemed to like plunging into rooms full of loud supporters. For Harper, it was always an ordeal.

The fact that he could steel himself to endure it, though, tells us much about his success as a politician. He never set hearts a-thumping — except among his enemies — but Harper's discipline made up the difference.

Politics, politics

Take the little matter of elections. It was a gigantic achievement to lead a fractious party to victory three times in a row, even in the teeth of a deep recession.

What's more, Harper did not step to the head of an established political machine; he had to build his own from the wreckage of two defeated parties. Preston Manning's Reform Party split the right; Harper united it.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen walk along the Great Wall China in 2009. Harper reversed his stand against chasing 'the almighty dollar' in China, and visited twice in pursuit of boosting trade. (Terry Milewski/CBC)

After that, he piled up wins. The immigrant vote? Check. The Jewish vote? Check. Keeping the social conservatives close while keeping them quiet? Check. Surviving minority government? Check, even if prorogation wasn't pretty. Running rings round Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff? Check and check.

Don't say that Harper didn't know how to pirouette, too. He preached against chasing "the almighty dollar" in China, then led the chase. He swore to balance the budget, then ran six deficits.

He campaigned on a cap-and-trade carbon plan in 2008, then mocked it in 2011. There was no rose in his lapel, but he could swivel like Pierre Trudeau and flip-flop with the best.

The deficit dragon — slain or sleeping?

His defining zig-zag, for many voters, was the recession budget of 2009. As the financial winds howled in the fall of 2008, he said, "We're not running a deficit ... that's our policy. We're not going into deficit."

Six weeks later, the first whopper of a deficit was in the works. By spring, it was over $50 billion.

So, yeah, that was one doozy of a flip-flop. And so?

Sometimes, a flip-flop can be a wonderful thing. The opposition complained that it hadn't happened sooner. Rather than being a black mark on Harper's record, it's now seen as simply a necessity in the face of an economic hurricane.

And the five more deficits that followed? Those enabled Harper to boast that he shoveled taxpayers' money out the door faster than any government in history.

Which, of course, was not what Conservatives thought they were voting for. They just had to hold their noses while $50 million was steered into Treasury Board President Tony Clement's central Ontario riding for "border infrastructure."

Oops! It's nowhere near the border.

So Harper could ladle pork like a Liberal. Better, in fact. Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin reduced the national debt by $90 billion and left a budgetary surplus of $14 billion. Harper's six deficits added $150 billion to the national debt.

Don't blame me

Not his fault, you say? Perhaps so, although Harper certainly made the red ink deeper by cutting the GST and adding $14 billion a year to the deficit. Add on all the tax cuts for hockey moms and firefighters and parents and, well, Harper even contrived to double the budget for prisons at a time when crime was falling.

The end result was lower taxes and higher debt. The two are not wholly unrelated.

Even so, a rising debt can still be a smaller slice of the economy if the economy grows.

That's the big picture: Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio is on a slow, downward creep, from 30 per cent to 25 per cent, which is better than our G7 partners. It's a meaningful measure of fiscal health. If Harper wants to be judged by the economy, then it could be a lot worse.

• Spin Cycle: Is Harper's economic record the worst since the Great Depression?

And, if oil prices had not crashed, it would probably look a lot better.

Ships, planes and pandas

As for global politics, let's start with the good news: baby pandas! Face it, Harper-haters, it's an unmitigated success. Pandas! Let's hope they survive.

Otherwise, Harper's conduct of foreign and defence policy has produced a tangled legacy that's long on bombast and short on cash.

Harper's pledge to stand by Israel 'through fire and water' was a centrepiece of his foreign policy. (Terry Milewski/CBC)

Harper always pooh-poohed Canadians' supposed historical role as peace-keepers and "honest brokers." Tell it to the boys who died at Vimy Ridge, he said. Or in Afghanistan, where they were sent, initially, by a Liberal government.

That wasn't peace-keeping; it was war. Even the brief engagement in Libya meant dropping bombs, not blankets — and there's certainly no peace to keep in the fight against ISIS.

However, Canada's modest contribution to these missions reflected another hard truth: Canada's defence spending under Harper never matched his muscular rhetoric. He loved to bemoan the Liberals' "decade of darkness," but Harper presided over a second decade of you-know-what. Canada's defence budget, at barely one per cent of GDP, is half what NATO expects.

• Canada's patched-up military: Too few dollars, too many missions

So, we still need new fighter jets. There's no commitment to buy F-35s or anything else. We're still patching up the old planes as best we can.

And the new ships? Be patient. For all Harper's chest-thumping about his shipbuilding plan, the Arctic patrol ships are five years behind schedule, the supply ships are eight years behind and the icebreaker ... just hang on for a decade or so.

Typically, though, the spin has arrived on time. The icebreaker has a name! It's the Diefenbaker. So — metaphor alert — it sounds like a rock-ribbed Conservative, but it's not real.

Fire, water and Obama

Still, Canada's lack of military muscle never stopped Harper playing the conviction politician on the world stage. Whether he was a consequential one is a different matter.

There's been brave rhetoric aplenty — on the uselessness of the UN, on ISIS, on Russia, Ukraine and especially on Israel.

Much of this was cheered on at home — and why not? When Saudi Arabia's on the UN Human Rights Council, do voters mind if Harper gives the UN no respect? As for ISIS, it was the Liberals and the NDP who were out of step with public opinion, not Harper.

Otherwise, though, for all his failings as a consensus politician, Harper's foreign policy was mostly backed by the opposition. Notably, he trumpeted his support for the Jewish state "through fire and water" and no party in Canada tried to stop him.

The Obama administration was a different story. The hopey-changey Obama-crats were irritated by Harper's foot-dragging on the environment and his claims that he wouldn't "take no for an answer" on the Keystone pipeline. Really?

Harper did succeed, though, in doing as little as possible about climate change while doing as much as possible about free trade.

Spin was a high priority in both files: Harper took credit for the closure of Ontario's coal plants — which he had opposed — and repeatedly celebrated a free trade deal with Europe which, two years later, is nowhere near being ratified. Likewise, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Ten years hence, though, we may thank Harper and his indefatigable trade minister, Ed Fast, for an essential boost to Canada's trade across the Atlantic and the Pacific. Their successors will reap the benefits and pay less for camembert.

Control freak in chief

Today, though, Canadians seem to judge Harper not by his achievements, but by his methods. Even his fans tend to look down and shuffle their feet when asked what Harper did to Canada's democracy.

His ugly attack ads, his fear-mongering and his muzzling of his own MPs and ministers all served to undermine his standing. 

Conservative Senator Mike Duffy has pleaded not guilty to 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery related to expenses he claimed in 2013 as a senator and later repaid with money from Nigel Wright, Stephen Harper's right-hand man at the time. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

His freakish parsimony with information and his strong-arm tactics in Parliament made him Canada's control-freak-in-chief. Where else is a government scientist forbidden to discuss the weather?

As John Ibbitson put it in a balanced and largely sympathetic biography, "no prime minister in history and no political party have been loathed as intensely as Stephen Harper and the Conservative party."

Yet Harper persisted, even when his clashes with independent forces kept ending badly. On Senate reform, prostitution, sentencing, safe injection sites, the niqab, Omar Khadr, even on Supreme Court appointments, the courts said No.

Each rebuff was dismissed as an enemy plot. Ditto, the parliamentary budget officer. Ditto, the chief justice. No one was safe. The chief of defence staff was dragooned into defending the Prime Minister's Office for using restricted footage in its taxpayer-funded vanity videos. The PMO, apparently, wasn't bound by the rules.

Thus did Harper pile up reasons to distrust him. Government advertising forced taxpayers to underwrite the Conservative message. Ministers read from evasive scripts in Question Period. Budget bills were stuffed with non-budgetary items and, in the 2011 campaign, Liberal and NDP voters were misled by a blizzard of robocalls.

Naturally, Elections Canada's powers were soon curtailed. But that didn't save Harper's parliamentary secretary, Dean Del Mastro, who faithfully cried "baseless smears!" at the opposition but ended up in jail for election fraud.

Don't mention Duffy

All that, and we haven't even mentioned Mike Duffy yet.

But let's not go there — not again! We know the story too well: the Ol' Duff soaked taxpayers while drumming up cash for the party, so Harper's henchmen schemed to protect him. Already battered, the reform agenda that brought Harper to power turned to dust. 

Now, it's the Liberals' turn again. Lord help us.

But look out. Somewhere, there may be a young Conservative — a budding economist, perhaps — who's watching, learning and plotting to clean up the mess in Ottawa one day.

By the time the Liberals get mired in the next scandal, this young reformer will be uniting the right and drafting a Senate reform plan.

Let's wish him or her good luck — but watch carefully.

The most arresting image of the election was made in its final moments, as the prime minister-designate made his way to the podium. He stopped to embrace a beautiful older woman.

In the shot, Margaret Trudeau cradles her son's cheeks and gazes into his eyes. After all these years, she still opens her face in public, cameras be damned.

And while it may just have been a quirk of lighting, there seemed to be more in that photo than a mother's love and pride.

Apprehension, perhaps. Her eldest son is, after all, heading back to 24 Sussex, the place she still calls "the crown jewel of the federal penitentiary system."

It is the place where, in Justin Trudeau's own words, his family was torn apart.

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Margaret Trudeau is now several times a grandmother; a retiring figure not terribly well known anymore to most Canadians.

There was a time, though, when she was one of the most famous women alive. Not just national fame, but consuming, global, Angelina Jolie fame.

Few Canadians had ever attained that sort of recognition. And in those more provincial days, Canadians seemed to resent it. We made her pay for it, too, I am ashamed to say.

Maggie, as the Ottawa press condescendingly called her, didn't have a malicious bone in her body.

She was guileless, and we were predatory. Our stories were full of snide references to the "flower girl" our Jesuitical prime minister had brought home.

We behaved like Hollywood paparazzi. When she ran off to party with the Rolling Stones (who of us wouldn't have if we'd had the chance?) we became night crawlers.

We hounded her. We would call every big hotel in Toronto, trying to imagine pseudonyms she might be using, using pseudonyms ourselves.

She landed a role in a film, Kings and Desperate Men. It was never released. We grinned.

She turned up dancing at Studio 54 (a place we'd never have been allowed near, let alone inside). We sneered.

She decided to become a photographer. We snarked. King Hussein of Jordan presented her with a full collection of Nikon equipment. We demanded to know if she'd paid tax on it.

Wait in the kitchen

After she enrolled in a photography course at Algonquin College, I was dispatched to the school by the Ottawa Citizen to scare up some gossip.

We wound up in an elevator together. I asked, stupidly, why she'd enrolled, and she said, reasonably, that she wanted to learn about photography, and I raced back to the newsroom with my I-spotted-Maggie scooplet.

To his enormous credit, Charley Gordon, my first city editor, spiked that story.

We are going to leave this woman alone, he ruled. I know for a fact that that decision eventually helped cost him his job.

Anyway, Margaret — I really should call her Mrs. Trudeau — did stay friendly with news photographers. They were a tight, closed bunch, and their contempt for wannabees was legendary, but they let her in.

Lynn Ball, an old Citizen colleague, remembers knocking on the door of 24 Sussex in 1974 with Fred Chartrand of Canadian Press, after Trudeau won a majority. (Anybody could knock on that door back then).

The cover of Time magazine in 1974 when Pierre Trudeau won his majority back. Photographer Lynn Ball of the Ottawa Citizen took the shot after knocking on the door of 24 Sussex that night. (Courtesy Lynn Ball)

The staff opened the door, and the pair waited for Canada's first couple to return, and then they all spent awhile on the back porch talking about the victory, and then the PM said it was time to leave.

"Margaret tugged on his arm, and smiled, and told him sort of seductively: 'We have things to do, Pierre,'" remembers Ball.

Reflexively, Ball lifted his Hasselblad and his bare-bulb flash and hit the button. The picture made the cover of Time magazine.

Rod MacIvor of the UPI met her in 1975. He was in the line at a press reception, and she asked him for photo lessons.

A few weeks later, his pager rang, and it was her, and she wanted a lesson, and she wanted it immediately.

"The butler showed me to an upstairs room, and I didn't know it then, but she'd decided to make it her private room, and she'd locked it to the world. She didn't even want the staff there; a friend of hers brought her a picnic lunch while we talked."

Her business

MacIvor showed her how to use a news camera — she knew nothing — and lent her his spare, a Nikkormat SLR. Then his pager went off again.

Get over to Rideau Hall, he was told. The governor-general, Jules Leger, was appearing before cameras to show he'd recovered from a stroke.

"She said she wanted to come with me and try out what she'd learned," MacIvor says. "Which was against all protocol, but what was I supposed to say, no?"

A young Margaret Trudeau joins the press corps for a day at a news conference at Rideau Hall. 'She had a feeling for a picture,' says former UPI photographer Rod MacIvor. (Courtesy Rod MacIvor)

MacIvor went downstairs to wait (Pierre Trudeau asked him to sit in the kitchen).

Then, having changed into work boots and a bandana, she showed up with his camera slung around her neck, and as she followed him across the street to Rideau Hall, he snapped a picture that went into his private collection.

Turned out she was a pretty good photographer herself.

"She took very romantic images," says MacIvor. "She'd write something, like a poem, then throw the pen down on it, or a rose, and take a picture of it. She had a feeling for a picture."

A few months later, MacIvor got a phone message: "I won't be able to make it to our lesson, Rod. They're locking me up."

"I called her and said 'Margaret, don't do this to me. I work for a news agency. Are they locking you up against your will?' She said no, I have to do this. The doctors agree."

Margaret Trudeau was being treated for mental illness. It would have been huge news, but MacIvor kept it to himself. Her business, he figured.

'Half-crazy'

Of course, Margaret Trudeau has since talked publicly about her bipolar disorder, and the way she lived her life back in those days.

On CBC's As It Happens the other night, she laughed that glassy laugh of hers, and said she can get away with anything, because "I'm half-crazy, or half-demented."

It was self-effacing, and it was utterly charming. Except our new prime minister lived all this, and must have obsessed over it. I know I would have.

He grew up watching his mother patronized, and chased, and mocked. Even in the past few years, garbage-mouth media types on the political right have scolded her self-righteously.

Justin Trudeau seems to carry no grudge, though. He actually defended a reporter against hecklers in the campaign's final days.

But MacIvor, who went on to document Pierre and Maggie and their kids to an extent few other Canadian journalists could even dream of, says the pain lingers.

"I asked him to come to one of my exhibits [of Trudeau pictures] after his father died," he says. "And he said 'I just can't, man. Maybe someday, but not now.'

"I wish he could have, but I understand. I mean, that was his family album up on the wall."