to move up and down
Justin Trudeau elected new Liberal leader in landslide with 80% of vote
Justin Trudeau has been elected to lead the federal Liberal party in a resounding first-ballot win.
Trudeau, eldest son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau and the Liberals’ undisputed star, swept 80% of the vote in a final field of six candidates.
The outcome was widely seen as a foregone conclusion since Trudeau launched his campaign last October. Now, the Liberals are hoping that the party’s undisputed rock star will be able to re-establish their reputation as the country’s natural governing party.
His ascension to the Liberal helm will, at least in the short term, put paid to the notion that the next election will be a polarized two-way fight between the Conservatives and New Democrats, with the Grits destined for oblivion.
Just the prospect of the 41-year-old Montreal MP’s victory was able to boost the Liberals, reduced to a third-place rump in 2011, back into contention in public opinion polls. They are now running even with or ahead of the ruling Conservatives. The NDP has been relegated to its traditional third place slot after vaulting into official Opposition status in 2011 for the first time in its history. (Michelle Siu for Postmedia News)
Voices from the backbench: Some MP opinions that their political parties don’t want you to know
With some Conservative backbenchers expressing concern that their opinions on abortion and other issues are being muzzled by the Prime Minister, the National Postp‘s Steve Murray looks at some other opinions MPs might have that go against their party lines
‘Just watch me’: Justin Trudeau invokes father’s famous words when asked if he can beat Stephen Harper
Liberal leadership frontrunner Justin Trudeau appears to have little problem embracing his father’s controversial legacy when it comes to taking potshots at Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
On a near-empty Porter Airlines flight from Halifax to Ottawa Tuesday evening, Trudeau was sent a note from a fellow passenger asking: “Can you really beat Harper?”
“Just watch me,” Trudeau wrote back, invoking Pierre Trudeau’s famous phrase during the 1970 October Crisis. (Screenshot/CP/Twitter)
‘Beat up a senator once. No big deal’
Post-approved campaign posters, slogans for Justin Trudeau’s Liberal leadership bid
John Ivison: Justin Trudeau will run for Liberal leadership
The Liberals said Thursday they will elect their new leader next April. But the result is a foregone conclusion: Justin Trudeau will enter the race and he will win. (Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)
No one said there would be blood: Steve Murray at the Justin Trudeau boxing match
As the shocking upset went down, the Post’s Steve Murray was in the audience, taking in his first-ever boxing match and producing a record of the proceedings so scrupulous you can almost taste the sweat and blood.
Related:
Brazeau wants rematch after being TKO’d by Trudeau in charity boxing bout
Photo gallery: Underdog Trudeau comes out victorious against Brazeau
Justin Trudeau scores major upset in Fight for the Cure boxing match over Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau
In a stunning upset, Liberal MP Justin Trudeau brawled his way to a second-round TKO victory over Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau. The referee stopped the fight in the third and final round.
Following his victory, Trudeau was hoisted on the shoulders of his supporters. The slender eldest son of Pierre Trudeau, who was expected to box his way to a points-only finish, instead pounded his foe into submission with a series of unschooled but powerful haymakers. In the final round, his attack became unrelenting and Brazeau was clearly exhausted. (Photos: Chris Wattie/Reuters)
Political heavyweights Justin Trudeau and Patrick Brazeau throw verbal jabs at charity weigh-in
The weeks of trash-talking and training will come to an end when Liberal MP Justin Trudeau and Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau meet in the ring this Saturday.
The two politicians-turned-pugilists are taking part in a charity boxing match — Fight for the Cure 2012, an annual fundraising initiative for the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation — and will fight their way through three two-minute rounds.
“I’ve never hid the fact that I wouldn’t mind to put the hurt on Justin — it’s a boxing match, it’s not aerobics class,” Brazeau said at the weigh-in. (Photos: Chris Wattie/Reuters)
Bob hunting season already?
With the Conservatives now attacking Bob Rae through commercials, Steve Murray imagines what the idea stage delivered.
Rivals Justin Trudeau and Senator Patrick Brazeau facing off in charity boxing bout
Liberal MP Justin Trudeau and Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau have sparred on Twitter, but on March 31, the two will fight for real in the ring.
The boxing match is part of Fight for the Cure, an annual gala featuring matches between “white-collar” Ottawans such as CTV anchor Terry Marcotte and lobbyist Walter Robinson, who fought last year. All proceeds go toward increasing “survivorship” among cancer patients in the Ottawa region.
Mr. Trudeau received training as a boxer in his youth, although he has never employed his skills in the ring. “He really wanted to see if he could compete properly,” said Rob Imbeault, one of the event organizers.
Follow the leaders: An illustrated, Liberal history
The National Post’s Steve Murray provides an illustrated guide to past and present leaders of Canada’s Liberal party.
And Murray is giving away this illustration as well: “Who doesn’t want a bunch of old white guys?”
Bob Rae puts chill on Liberals’ break from old politics
John Ivison: It’s my bet that many Liberals left the conference with the disconcerting feeling that their enthusiasm for doing politics differently is at odds with the cold, calculating nature of their 63-year-old leader
Graeme Hamilton: Lise St-Denis’ defection to the Liberals sign of Quebec’s volatile politics
When voters in the Quebec riding of St-Maurice-Champlain elected Lise St-Denis last May, the ballot listed her as a New Democrat but it might as well have read Team Layton.
A Montreal resident, she had skipped the all-candidates debate, hung no campaign posters and set foot in the riding just once — the Saturday before the May 2 vote. And still, this unknown retiree won the riding by more than 4,500 votes over the Bloc Québécois incumbent.
Ms. St-Denis’ announcement Tuesday that she had jumped to the Liberals is damaging not because her presence will be particularly missed on the NDP benches, but because of what it reveals about the fragile state of her former party in Quebec.
Asked by a reporter in Ottawa whether she was betraying voters who, eight months earlier, elected her under the NDP banner, Ms. St-Denis had a blunt assessment: “They voted for Jack Layton. Jack Layton is dead.”
‘They voted for Jack Layton. Jack Layton is dead,’ former NDP MP says on move to Liberals
Quebec NDP MP Lise St-Denis announced Tuesday she is crossing the floor to sit with Canada’s third party.
“The decision I have made is motivated by the challenges that the people of my riding will face,” St-Denis said at a news conference in Ottawa, flanked by interim Liberal leader Bob Rae and Denis Coderre, the party’s Quebec caucus president.
St-Denis also cited disagreements over NDP policy on Senate reform and Libya as a reason for her switch.
Elected for the first time May 2, St-Denis represents the riding of Saint-Maurice-Champlain, which was once held by former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien.
When asked about the reaction of voters in her riding to the move, St-Denis was reported to reply: “Les électeurs ont voté pour Jack Layton. Jack Layton est mort.” or, roughly, “Voters voted for Jack Layton. Jack Layton is dead.” (Photo: Brian Gable/Reuters)
