Young Trudeau faces challenge in Papineau

The Montreal area riding of Papineau will hold its Liberal nomination meeting this Sunday night, and little Trudeau faces a significant challenge in this working-class riding, and he hasn't even been elected. Rumours have a common-front deal between is two opponents Mary Deros, a city councillor and community activist who has worked in the area for 20 years, and Basilio Giordano, a former city councillor and publisher of the local Italian-language newspaper in the making. The deal would see the two support one another in a bid to oust the bourgeois outsider who has parachuted into the riding.

"It's an anybody-but-Trudeau story," a local Liberal organizer told the Star. "The thing that will make the difference is the deal making." Trudeau said in an interview yesterday that he knows he has critics but that he has worked hard to build "street cred" in the urban riding by meeting with cultural groups and listening to their concerns.

"Street cred" or not, giving baby Trudeau the nod in Papineau is bad news in more than one way. Canada already has far too many Trudeau liberals in the parliament, and an actual Trudeau would make it even worse. Of course, the situation is made worse by the fact that the sitting MP in Papineau is Vivian Barbot, who would naturally lose her seat if Trudeau (or any Liberal) were to be elected. Aside from being my personal favorite MP in parliament, this Haitian immigrant is a member of SPQ Libre, the former vice president of the Quebec Federation of Women, and an activist for women's, cultural and labour issues. A Barbot defeat, by any candidate, is bad news.

Sadly, baby Trudeau can run on the coat tails of his father and tap into this romantic notion of Trudeaumania. But before we get weak in the knees thinking about P.E.T., let's not forget about the War Measures Act, wage and price controls, and the six-and-five program...

Hopefully this common-front opposition to Trudeau comes to be and Papineau Liberals defeat his nomination bid.