Pubdate: Mon, 18 Aug 2014
Source: Windsor Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 The Windsor Star
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/501
Author: Mark Kennedy
Page: A6

TRUDEAU SAYS HE WON'T BE KNOCKED OFF COURSE

Liberal leader aims to focus on positive change

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 the Ottawa Citizen,
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
occurred 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," said
Trudeau. "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.

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."
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