Will Justin meet his destiny?
Longish piece on whether Montreal MP Justin Trudeau will step up to head the federal Liberals or not.
(Idle thought: why doesn’t he have a crack at taking Gerald Tremblay’s job?)
Longish piece on whether Montreal MP Justin Trudeau will step up to head the federal Liberals or not.
(Idle thought: why doesn’t he have a crack at taking Gerald Tremblay’s job?)
Alex 18:49 on 2012/08/18 Permalink
Good question!
To your knowledge, would there by any way for Montreal to secede from Quebec? Become its own province? Boxin’ Trudeau could have a swing at that too!
Jack 13:18 on 2012/08/19 Permalink
There’s a movement lead by Liberal hack Warren Kinsella to get him to run for the leadership. I am always surprised that these Toronto based “analysts” have no clue how badly the Trudeau name has been damaged in French Quebec. The PQ and minions in the media and universities have succeeded in constructing a Pierre Trudeau whose sole goal was to damage French Canada. Justin would be hard pressed to win outside of Montreal.
Kate 13:22 on 2012/08/19 Permalink
It’s ironic and sad that Quebec produced someone like Pierre Trudeau yet hates him so much.
Alex 18:51 on 2012/08/19 Permalink
It is perplexing…
JaneyB 19:32 on 2012/08/19 Permalink
He is also dead out West. That last name alone would sink his boat. Trudeau père is still hat-ed. Seriously so. Plus Justin is a lightweight and no photo-ops will fix that. His dad was Justice minister and law professor before he ran. Justin has been a drama teacher and a backbencher.
Most of Justin’s support is coming from certain neighbourhoods in Toronto (professors in the Annex: please get over PET!) and Anglo-Montrealers. He could take some votes from Mulcair in the GTA and give us 4 more years of Harper. If he weren’t good-looking and the son of Mr. Charisma, no one would think twice about him. We need more than that in a prime minister, especially against Harper. Nice guy that Justin but…
Kate 21:36 on 2012/08/19 Permalink
I don’t think we have enough evidence to call Justin a lightweight – it just seems to be something people say about him because he hasn’t the incisiveness of his father. But nobody in our era has the incisiveness of his father.
If the federal Liberals get their act together and find any plausible leader, they risk splitting the centre-left vote with the NDP. I don’t think this could be pinned on Justin any more than anyone else.
Jean Naimard 22:22 on 2012/08/19 Permalink
The comments here, such as “It’s ironic and sad that Quebec produced someone like Pierre Trudeau yet hates him so much” and “I am always surprised that these Toronto based “analysts” have no clue how badly the Trudeau name has been damaged in French Quebec.” are a fantastic indication on how the english (even those who are in Québec) simply have no clue about Québec.
It’s not the media and the universities who have made Trudeau a huge failure in Québec, it is Trudeau himself who did.
Jack 01:04 on 2012/08/20 Permalink
Since Trudeau was of course such a failure, how did Trudeau do with the Quebec electorate, you know the people. In 68 he won 58 of 74 seats, in 72 60 seats, in 74 60 again, in 79 67 seats, in his last election in Quebec he won 74 out of 75 seats. He was singularly the most electorally popular politician in Quebec history.Trudeau’s failure was that he was simply far too intelligent and rigorous for Quebec’s nationalist class, he pummelled them at every opportunity. Though I never voted for him, it was fun to see an entire generation of Quebec’s nationalist elite tied in knots.
Levesque was broken after the repatriation of the Constitution, he had been out manoeuvred, not knifed. Trudeau’s stand on Meech Lake , though I didn’t agree, was based on Liberal political philosophy.For this he has been vilified like no other Quebec politician.
The best description of this relationship was probably best summed up by former PQ cabinet minister Claude Charron, “Levesque was who we were, Trudeau was who we wanted to be.”
@Jean you’re right I don’t have a clue about Quebec, I wish I was wise like you.
Steph 01:18 on 2012/08/20 Permalink
I daydream that Trudeau leads the Liberals to merge with the NDP (which is moving to the center anyways) to finally conquer the Tories. Mulcair will keep the reigns of the merged parties and Trudeau can step up at some later date. I’m not sure which party name they’d use though.
Kate 08:06 on 2012/08/20 Permalink
Steph, that’s the ideal outcome, but I’ve read and been told that it’s very, very unlikely that the Liberals and NDP would each abandon their particular philosophies and individual histories and identities to merge. A coalition in the future against the Tories may be the best we can hope for.
Ian 14:27 on 2012/08/20 Permalink
Liberal members are always free to quit and join the NDP. I’m not sure why everyone’s looking the NDP to compromise their integrity for the failing Liberals when the Liberals would never have considered such a move when the NDP was doing poorly.