Justin Trudeau Clearly The Man To Beat In Federal Liberal Leadership Race!
By R. Paul Dhillon
SURREY – While the national media was consumed with aiding the Conservative smear campaign of bringing out old anti-Alberta quotes from Justin Trudeau’s past – the young dynamic would-be leader of the federal Liberal party had his leadership campaign in over drive with a raucous reception in Surrey where he was greeted by nearly 1000 supporters at the Grand Taj Banquet hall.
An obviously overwhelmed Trudeau, who showed no signs of fatigue from what the national media was making out to be a big setback for the son of the former Canadian prime minister and political legend Pierre Elliot Trudeau, emphasized Canada’s diversity courtesy of immigration and which was in jeopardy under the ideologically driven Conservatives, who’s policies have clearly shown that they want to pick and choose who comes to Canada.
The large Indo-Canadian crowd, which was predominantly made up of Sikh Canadians, gave Trudeau standing ovations before and after his speech and the well liked leader didn’t disappoint his supporters, staying long to shake hands and take pictures with young and old, families and individuals, which included a large number of young people and women.
Following his speech, he also took time to talk with members of the Indo-Canadian media, addressing the Conservatives’ attempts to kill off family class immigration and policies which emphasize one category of immigrants over the other.
“Before the election – you saw Jason Kenney attend all these ethnic gatherings, asking for votes but where is he now – too busy making policies that clearly affect those communities he courted for the vote,” Trudeau said.
“I’m hearing a lot of backlash against Minister Kenney and his policies and the direction of this government that is so driven by their ideological agenda. It’s a disservice to many hard working Canadians.”
In a question from the LINK stating that since there is a lot of support on the Centre -left (more than 60 percent of Canadians did not vote for the Conservatives who benefitted from the NDP-Liberal split) – what would Trudeau do if he becomes leader to bring the lost Liberal support but also the soft Liberal-NDP support that went to the NDP due to the Jack Layton factor in the last election – Trudeau said that will be his key challenge before the next election to bring all progressive-minded voters back to the Liberal fold.
“That’s a great question and believe me if I become leader I will be focusing on Canadian unity – from east to west and bringing all Canadians together because let’s be frank – while both the NDP and Conservatives are trying to stake the centre – they are both ideologically driven parties,” Trudeau said.
“The Lberal party of Canada has a long history of being a centre-driven party with a progressive agenda and that is what my goal will be to bring Canadians together.”
While Trudeau was talking about unity – a media firestorm was brewing about some seemingly anti-Alberta comments he had made two years ago and which were dug up by the rightwing media friends of the Conservatives to smear Trudeau, especially ahead of a very tight by-election race in Calgary-Centre.
Trudeau addressed the controversy on Friday morning in Vancouver, apologizing for his two-year-old comments that have fuelled accusations from the Conservatives pegging him as anti-Alberta.
Trudeau said they were not meant to offend Albertans.
“I was wrong to relate the area of the country that Mr. Harper is from with the people who live there and with the policies he has that don’t represent the values of most Canadians,” Trudeau said. “It was wrong to use shorthand to say Alberta when I was really talking about Mr. Harper’s government and I’m sorry I did that.”
The Conservative attack comes a day after a new poll was released suggesting Trudeau’s popularity is growing. The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey suggests Trudeau has the potential to siphon off votes from all parties, including the Tories, reported Canadian Press.
Forty-two per cent of respondents said they’d be certain or likely to vote Liberal in the next election with Trudeau as leader. That’s enough to form a comfortable Liberal majority government.
Trudeau’s appeal was consistent across urban and rural areas and among voters of all age groups.
“There’s a sense that people are tired of being taken for granted by a government that is taking this country in the wrong direction,” Trudeau said. “The energy has an awful lot of Conservatives very, very frightened. When they get scared they do this, they attack, they draw out old comments and they try to divide and set people against each other.”
