Liberals yearning for the glory days of Trudeaumania as they head into a leadership contest could face a choice between Pierre Trudeau's eldest son and the mother of his only daughter.

Justin Trudeau is actively reconsidering his initial decision to stay out of the race.

But Deborah Coyne isn't waiting for the 40-year-old Montreal MP to make up his mind.

She's taking the plunge today.

"Our families have always been very separate so I have not been speaking to Justin Trudeau," Coyne told The Canadian Press, wishing him "all the best" in whatever he decides to do.

"If the two of us happen to end up in the leadership contest together, I don't see anything awkward about that. I think that's wonderful."

"The more people you have in, bringing different perspectives to bear, different suggestions about where the country should go, different ideas for rebuilding the party, the better."

Nor, Coyne maintains, will it make for uncomfortable half-sibling relations. Daughter Sarah is "very supportive of me and interested in what I'm doing," but she's heading into her final undergraduate year at an American university and won't be involved in the leadership campaign.

While Justin Trudeau would be the presumptive front-runner should he jump into the contest, Coyne knows she's a long-shot.

But she says she's running because she believes Canadians are fed up with polarizing partisanship and that gives the Liberal party a golden opportunity to re-emerge from its current third-party status as the party of "bold, principled" national leadership on important public policy questions.

"I'm in this to make sure it's an ideas-based campaign. I believe I have a vision and a program that will resonate with many Canadians."

The Liberal leadership contest won't formally begin until November, culminating in a leadership convention next April.

Shane Geschiere, a 32-year-old Manitoba paramedic with no political experience, is the only other person so far to openly declare his intention to enter the race.

A multitude of others are mulling whether to take the plunge, including Montreal MP and first Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau, Ottawa MP David McGuinty, New Brunswick MP Dominic LeBlanc, former MPs Gerard Kennedy, Mark Holland and Martha Hall Findlay, one-time candidates David Bertschi and Taleeb Noormohamed and Toronto lawyer George Takach.

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