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Trudeau To Run in Vancouver?

Rumour has the famous scion running in the next election, why not here?

Richard Warnica 6 Dec 2006TheTyee.ca

Richard Warnica is a senior editor at The Tyee.

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Quebec nationalist Liberal Jean Lapierre, who left the party in 1990 to help found the Bloc Quebecois, only to return in 2003 to serve in Paul Martin's cabinet, today mused publicly that he may not run in the next federal election.

"I said when I came back to politics that I came with Paul Martin and I was going to go with Paul Martin. As of Thursday night, I feel emotionally and morally relieved of my commitment and now it's for me to decide what I'm going to do," Lapierre is reported saying on Politics Watch.

On the intraweb, blue blogger Stephen Taylor took that now possibly open Quebec seat, added one aspiring young Liberal with a killer smile and famous name, and baked this pie: Justin Trudeau, the most visible, vocal supporter of Liberal kingmaker Gerard Kennedy, will run in Outremont, Lapierre's Montreal area riding, in the next election.

Taylor says he heard the rumour last week at the Liberals' convention. And while I have heard no such rumour, I'd like to start one of my own.

Justin Trudeau will run in the next federal election. But it won't be in Quebec. No, the man who is Canada's answer to either John Kennedy Junior or George W. Bush (or maybe handsome's answer to Ben Mulroney) will run right here in Vancouver, in the riding soon to be vacated by the much loathed David Emerson.

It makes some perverse sense.  The young Trudeau lived, went to school and worked for years in this city. And the Liberals need a new candidate in Kingsway. What's more, they need a good one. Before Emerson crossed the floor, the riding was pretty reliably Liberal. But it also encompasses some pretty strong NDP territory. And if enough fence-sitters who went Liberal last time are still feeling jilted by the Emerson debacle when the next election comes, the riding could easily fall to the dippers.  Who better to regain voter trust, some might ask, than the young Trudeau?

Of course that's all idle speculation. But someone does have to replace Emerson; he won't win again. And while the list of Liberals in this province who are tight with the leader is hardly short (don't be surprised if Christy Clark, whose husband ran Dion's campaign, makes a bid) it's nice, every once in a while, to dream big.

For those reminded by this picture of this picture from a November Big Story, please note I am obliged to link photos of prominent Canadians in  turtle and/or mock turtleneck tops at least twice per annum. (It's a Cancon thing.)  [Tyee]

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