By Pepper Parr
May 5th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
We need to remember how it all started.
Veteran journalist Paul Wells, an observer of national politics for decades while writing for Maclean’s, National Post, the Toronto Star and now Substack, shares his thoughts in his new book “Trudeau on the Ropes.” An excerpt from the book follows
“In March 2012 the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation organized an event called Fight for the Cure. People from the professional classes would sell tickets and box with one another awkwardly. It took Justin Trudeau weeks to find a Conservative who would face him. Finally, a beefy Conservative-appointed senator named Patrick Brazeau answered the call.
Make a point of asking the library to order the book. Worth reading.
“The two men climbed into a makeshift ring in a packed ballroom at the east-end Hampton Inn on March 31.
“The whole thing, ridiculously, inevitably, was broadcast live on national television. Brazeau’s arms were bigger than Trudeau’s legs and in the days before the match Brazeau’s Conservative caucus colleagues had passed their time on Twitter gleefully celebrating his victory ahead of time. In the event, it took Trudeau about seven minutes to pummel Brazeau so nearly senseless that the referee stopped the fight.
“Five weeks later, Trudeau’s photo was on the cover of Maclean’s, illustrating an article that said, look, maybe this guy should be the next leader of what had been, until Stephen Harper came along, the winningest political party in Western civilization.
“Forty-nine weeks after that, by God, he was.
“And the next time Canadians got a chance to vote on the matter, the Liberals, with Trudeau as leader, snapped a three-election losing streak and returned to power, where they remain, after a fashion, to this day.”
Trudeau was clever enough to pick on an out of shape fool as a boxing competitor and made fools of those who voted for him thereafter. The ring of public opinion will decide the winner of Justin’s next round.
You lost me at veteran ‘journalist’ at the STAR.