He’s undisciplined, critics contend, light on policy and cavalier. Not everyone holds to the perception, but it was reinforced recently with his blatherings about Quebec’s being justified in going its own way, given the Harper government’s values. That brought down a hailstorm of abuse on the 40-year-old MP, for whom there’s a lot of bile out there to begin with. This is Western Canada’s time, the country’s conservative time, and Pierre Trudeau, of course, symbolized other regions and other values. Thirty years on, Prairie people still haven’t got over the national energy program. They still react with wrath to the Trudeau name.
And so when they heard that Pierre Trudeau’s kid was going into the ring against tattooed, tough-guy Tory Senator Patrick Brazeau, they were licking their chops. They could picture him getting bloodied. A Trudeau on the canvas! The ultimate humiliation.
As we know, the opposite happened. “Trudeau celebrates Earth Hour by knocking Brazeau’s lights out,” said one online post.
The boxing match, while done for charity, was a fitting metaphor for our lowbrow politics. Verbal abuse verges on fisticuffs, so why not take it that extra step. The Trudeau-Brazeau fight could touch off a trend, here and abroad.
The most significant part of Saturday’s bout was not that all the Trudeau haters had to eat crow. It was the image transformation of Justin from mother’s boy to father’s son and all that this could entail.
It was daring for Justin to put himself in the position he did. He knew, as he told me with an air of cockiness a couple of days before the match, that Mr. Brazeau wasn’t as tough as people were saying. But it was still a gamble. He risked bringing humiliation not only on himself but on the family name. He risked a lasting career setback.
Read More:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lawrence-martin/justin-trudeau-in-the-name-of-the-father/article2389682/
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