TORONTO – Do people in the rest of the country love to hate Toronto?
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau says he thinks that is just something “Torontonians love to tell themselves.” But he did offer an example of how people in Canada’s largest city act differently.
“Can I tell you how often I get an email inviting me to an event and if there is no mention of the city where the event is, I know it’s in Toronto,” he said during an interview in Toronto Monday.
“Where is it? ‘Oh it’s in Toronto.’ You didn’t think to mention that as you sent an email to Ottawa or Montreal? There’s an assumption but I love Toronto.”
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau is in the middle of a cross-Canada tour in support of his new book “Common Ground.” He says he offers “a thoughtful approach” when asked to convince Canadians he is the one to lead Canada.
With the next federal election a year away, the interest in Trudeau has been stoked lately by articles in Chatelaine and Vanity Fair that examine his personal life and his experience growing up with famous parents.
But he says he’s not concerned with his celebrity keeping him from winning votes.
“I think if the celebrity was all there was then yes. It would be of real concern. I have a lot of credit to Canadians that not many pundits do. I think that people are smarter about the choices they make than what people give them credit for,” he said.
But he offered little beyond “the thoughtful approach I bring to politics” when asked about the troubling events around the world and how he can convince voters he should be leader, before attacking Stephen Harper’s administration for being driven by ideology and a desire to continue winning at the polls.
Hardly the most stinging of attacks, nor the most enthusiastic of sales job. Which in a way sums up the Justin Trudeau, or at least the current version of him. Next year when he must square off against Stephen Harper and Thomas Mulcair in a national election, he is less likely to be passive in his critiques.
Hoping to build on the excitement and glamour of a candidate who often has people waiting to take selfies with him, the Liberals have decided ‘Book Tour Justin’ will be all warm smiles and gentle admonishments talking more about Canadian values than Canadian legislation.
When talking about a national strategy for daycare, Trudeau blamed the other parties in Parliament for denying it to Canadians.
“Unfortunately the NDP and the Tories brought down the government so that national daycare never happened,” he said.
The fact voters in January of 2006 sent more Conservative than Liberal voters to Parliament seems less important.
Now Trudeau says “we are going to start that again with ten years wasted and a very different fiscal room.”
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