Justin Trudeau, son of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, just won the leadership race for the Liberal Party of Canada. Canada's next national election will be in 2015, giving Trudeau plenty of time to consolidate his grip over the party apparatus.
And can he return the Liberal Party to power? His biggest problem here comes from a challenger on the left.
As David wrote at the National Post last year:
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Canadian parties tend to be based either where the money and population is, or where the grievances are.
Thomas Mulcair gets this. He’s rebuilt the federal NDP as a latter-day Social Credit, demanding a cheaper dollar to help the country’s more depressed regions — this time, Quebec rather than the Prairies.
The challenge for today’s Liberal party is that if it tries to out-compete the NDP as a protest party, it will disqualify itself as a governing party — its historic role. But how can the young Trudeau present his Liberals as an alternative governing party when he’ll be unacceptable to the regions where a government of 21st-century Canada must be based?
We'll keep a watch on the heir to Trudeau.
