Liberal Party Wins Canada’s Election, Making Justin Trudeau the Next Prime Minister

    Qui est Justin Trudeau? (arindambanerjee / Shutterstock.com)

Phew, the party of conservative and bad musician Stephen Harper didn’t win the Canadian election Monday — the Liberal Party did. But who exactly is the Liberals’ leader, Justin Trudeau?

The Guardian explains:

Just a few months ago, Justin Trudeau was an unlikely contender to be Canada’s next prime minister. Running third in the polls, behind incumbent Stephen Harper’s Conservatives and the resurgent leftwing New Democratic party, Trudeau – son of legendary prime minister Pierre Trudeau – was slated as too young (he is 43) and too inexperienced to haul his beleaguered Liberal party out of the electoral mess of the 2011 general election. … His family – he has three young children aged eight and under with his wife Sophie Grégoire – was also cited as a reason not to put himself forward. But by 2012, with other contenders falling by the wayside, the spotlight swung once again to Trudeau, and in October of that year he launched his bid with a rally in Montreal.

His victory in April 2013 was almost embarrassingly comprehensive: he took over the Liberal party with 80.1% of the vote. The national polls – initially, at least – surged in his favour.

But the path to government proved rather rockier. Progressive voters were tempted by Thomas Mulcair’s New Democrats, while Harper’s unpopular Conservative government took heart from the surprise victory – attributed to “shy Tories” – of David Cameron’s party in the UK elections in May.

Read more.

—Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata