Pubdate: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 Source: StarPhoenix, The (CN SN) Copyright: 2014 The StarPhoenix Contact: http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/400 Author: Mark Kennedy Page: C8 TRUDEAU SAYS HE WON'T BE KNOCKED OFF COURSE OTTAWA - Liberal leader Justin Trudeau says he's not worried about the negative perceptions of him spread by his opponents and believes he has always been underestimated as a politician. Trudeau made the comments in an interview with Postmedia News, during which he spoke about the economically squeezed middle class, why marijuana should be legalized and what it was like growing up as the son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. The interview took place before a weekend break-in at Trudeau's Ottawa home in which an intruder or intruders left what has been described as a threatening note. "All my life, I've dealt with people who have their minds made up about me before ever having met me or actually engaged with me," Trudeau said. "I don't spend a lot of energy worrying about what people who are determined to dislike me or knock me down have to say about me." Instead, said Trudeau, he's intent on meeting Canadians and trusting their judgment. "I'm going to stay focused on bringing forward solutions to Canadians, talking with them about the big issues and demonstrating that I have the strength of my convictions. "So when someone criticizes me because they don't think I'm smart enough or serious, it doesn't bother me, it doesn't affect me. I simply focus on doing what I can with all the tools that I do have, and they are considerable, to contribute to the world in a positive way." Trudeau said that as a politician he has consistently outperformed expectations: winning a Liberal nomination in a Montreal riding where "everyone wrote me off"; winning the two federal elections that followed in that riding; emerging as the victor in a charity boxing match where he was considered the underdog against Sen. Patrick Brazeau; and not falling "flat on my face" in the 2013 party leadership race he won. As he gears up for the 2015 election, comparisons are also being made to his father and whether he can replicate the "Trudeaumania" that swept Pierre Trudeau into office as prime minister in 1968. Justin Trudeau, who spent more than a decade of his early years living at 24 Sussex Drive, spoke about the effects of that and "the pressure that I put on myself. I had an extraordinary example in a father who dedicated himself to building a better country, building a better world, and being a great dad at the same time." Many years after Pierre Trudeau left politics and his health was deteriorating before his death in 2000, Trudeau decided to sit down with his father to ask some important questions. "I realized it was possible that I would end up in politics one day. And I'd never actually had a sit-down conversation on politics with this giant of Canadian politics. And how angry at myself would I be if years from now I realized I never actually learned anything from my father around politics." He asked his father about how to resist lobbyists, and the former prime minister "sort of" gave an answer. "It was a really awkward conversation. Until I realized that everything he had taught me about being a good person, a good citizen, a good dad, was also what he was teaching me about being a good politician. "There wasn't any trick to it, or secret, other than to be a good person and to be serious about serving the community with everything you have. And to make the right decisions, not the easy decisions." In recent months, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government has pointed to several incidents - for example Trudeau's musings about why Russia invaded Ukraine, an offhand statement about how budgets balance themselves - as proof that he is not qualified to be prime minister. The Tories have also used Trudeau's position on marijuana legalization to launch attack ads and circulate flyers that claim the Liberal leader plans to make it easier for children to obtain marijuana. In fact, Trudeau said his plan is to keep pot out of the hands of kids. He said young people are finding it "easier to buy a joint than it is to buy a bottle of beer. And that's wrong. "Our current approach is not working. We are failing to protect our kids from the effects of marijuana. And you can say all you like about how it might not be as bad as alcohol or nicotine. But the fact is we want to keep marijuana out of the hands of the developing brains of our teenagers." In the U.S., marijuana for recreational use went on sale in Colorado on Jan. 1 and Washington state followed suit this summer. Trudeau says a Canadian system of controlling and regulating pot would make it harder for young people to buy and would keep profits from going to organized crime and street gangs. "And we free up the justice system and police resources from criminalizing something that honestly is maybe not good for you but shouldn't be a focus of interfering with adults' freedom to make their own choices." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom