There are plenty of good reasons not to vote for Justin Trudeau.
His party leader's policies are clearly one. The real (read: not mythical) legacy of his father is another. The risk of passing the Trudeau political mythology along to another generation is another still.
But in the course of a move clearly meant to embarrass Trudeau, running for the first time in the riding of Papineau, Les Jeunes Patriotes du Quebec gave voters a good reason to vote for him -- he really pisses off separatists."[Justin Trudeau] long refused to recognize Quebec as a nation," Francois Gendron, a spokesman for the group, announced. "We are a people and we are a nation."
"If he's going to play rock star he has to deal with the consequences. We're giving his campaign a little colour."
There's little question that, as the 2008 federal election progresses, Justin Trudeau very much has been cast into the role of the rock star. The news that he and his wife are expecting a second child garnered considerable attention on Canada's celebrity talk show circuit.
As the natural heir to the aforementioned Pierre Trudeau political mythology -- one that casts him into the role of national saviour, yet somehow overlooks that Trudeau made the at best boneheaded decision to negotiate the patriation of the constitution while a separatist government was in power in Quebec (just think about that) -- Trudeau has already inherited the mantle of unofficial leadership in the Liberal party. If Stephane Dion is the brains of the party and Bob Rae (who attented Trudeau's campaign launch) is the heart, then Trudeau is certainly the spirit of the party.
His father's role in the decisive defeat of separatist forces in the 1980 referendum made Trudeau a natural target for the separatists.
Normally, it should be considered fickle to support a political candidate simply because one particular group of people doesn't like him. But in Trudeau's case, the contempt separatists hold for him is actually quite the boon for federalist forces in Quebec.
When individuals like Gendron denounce Trudeau for his support of bilingualism -- apparently insisting that Quebec should be unilingually French and the Anglo-Quebeckers who've lived in the province for generations should go to hell -- it really underscores separatists for the bigots so many of them really are.
This is separatism at its worst, and a reminder to Quebeckers who may flirt with their organizations for other reasons to think twice about doing so.
I think I may have been the only person in Western Canada to think so, but I always have thought that Trudeau was Canada's greatest PM. I don't think either of his sons are made from the same material, though, but you are right. It's good to have a candidate who believes in Canada, although I have to admit that in the past couple of weeks I've been feeling Western separatism sentiments welling up inside me, especially considering the way CBC has been covering the various parties campaigns. It's Liberals good, Conservatives bad.
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