OTTAWA – It was makeover Monday for Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau after he lost a weekend charity boxing match to Liberal MP Justin Trudeau.
His ego already bruised by Saturday night’s beating, Brazeau suffered another blow as his long locks were lopped off in the House of Commons foyer Monday.
The new ‘do came with a new uniform for the Conservative politician, a bright red Liberal jersey with the name “Trudeau” emblazoned across the back.
Brazeau has to wear the jersey in the Senate for the rest of the week.
“Two days out of three now I know how it feels to be on the losing end,” Brazeau said as he pulled the jersey over his head.
The public shaming was all part of the bet the two politicians placed on a charity fight for cancer research held on Saturday night. Trudeau trounced Brazeau in three rounds of fighting, but the real winner was the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation. The fight night raised $230,000 for the foundation.
The foyer was packed with journalists, parliamentary staffers and MPs eager to see whether Brazeau would honour his side of the bargain.
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As Brazeau sat down on a barber’s chair and donned a white smock, Trudeau readied the scissors behind him.
With a stoic look on his face, Brazeau braced himself to say goodbye to his foot-long locks. But Trudeau surprised him, only snipping a few millimeters from the ponytail.
In French, Trudeau explained his change of heart, saying, “Patrick is a man of his word, and I’m a man who respects him.”
In the end, Brazeau insisted on getting the haircut – a move that he said would please his father.
“I need a haircut now just for him, but I need a haircut to honour my mom, which is the reason I did this in the first place,” said the senator, who lost his mother to cancer. Trudeau lost his father, former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to the disease.
Brazeau started growing his hair long after his mother died in 2004. He cut it once in 2010, before getting 20 centimetres cut off on Monday.
Trudeau said as far as he’s concerned Brazeau doesn’t need the cut, but the MP said he’d be holding Brazeau to the jersey.
“It stings,” Brazeau said of his new threads. “But a bet is a bet and I said I would do it … I’m just proud it looks more like a Hockey Canada jersey than a Liberal jersey.”
Lucky for Brazeau it’s a short week on Parliament Hill thanks to the Easter break.
Brazeau won’t get a chance to get revenge, at least not in the ring. Trudeau said he was happy to participate in the fight, but won’t be looking for a rematch.
“I got to check off the little box on my bucket list that said ‘participate in a boxing match.’ I’m a parliamentarian, I’m not a boxer,” he said.
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