Justin Trudeau skirts questions about possible Liberal leadership bid

<p>MONTREAL – If Justin Trudeau is interested in becoming Liberal leader, he wasn’t letting on Monday night.</p> <p>The son of former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau was one of just seven Quebec Liberals to emerge unscathed after the NDP surged to 58 seats in the province.</p> <p>Talk turned quickly to leadership after the Liberal debacle across the country, which also included current Liberal honcho Michael Ignatieff going down to defeat in his own riding.</p> <p>”Now is not the time to discuss leadership, now is the time to look at what this party actually needs” said the 39-year-old Trudeau.</p> <p>”I think changing leaders as often as the Liberal party has in the past few years hasn’t been the magic bullet we thought it would be… We need to a lot of hard work on the ground before we can get anywhere near the kind of trust we need from Canadians.”</p> <p>He added he will continue to support Ignatieff as leader if the party decides to keep him.</p> <p>Trudeau won again in the riding of Papineau, beating out the next closest candidate – a New Democrat – by 3,000 votes.</p> <p>He first won the working-class riding in 2008 by about 1,000 votes over Bloc Quebecois incumbent Vivian Barbot, who finished third this time around.</p> <p>Though Trudeau has struggled to shed his image as a political lightweight, he will likely take on a larger role in the party after the ousting of several key MPs – and he has already shown signs of asserting himself. </p> <p>He made headlines late in the campaign when he acknowledged the Liberals had trouble connecting with voters and suggested some party members had grown complacent. </p> <p>Despite his party’s poor showing, Trudeau said he was pleased to see Quebecers jump ship from the separatist Bloc Quebecois, even if it wasn’t to join the Liberals.</p> <p>”(Quebecers) have stopped saying, ‘OK let’s just sit on the sidelines,'” he said.</p> <p>”I think we’ll look at a very different country in the coming years with Quebec playing a major role.”</p>