‘Absolutely stunning’ crowd meets Trudeau in the GTA
Liberal leadership candidate delivers his message of revitalizing middle class in key battleground
Justin Trudeau says people are flocking to his Liberal leadership campaign because they’re hungry for something better than the ruling Conservative government. With more than 1,000 people crammed into a Mississauga banquet hall to see the Liberal leadership candidate, Trudeau’s threeday-old campaign picked up even more steam with its debut in the GTA.
“The last few days have given me hope,” Trudeau said.
“It’s not about me. . . . It’s not even about our party. Canadians are listening because they’re not satisfied with the government they have. They want better. They know they deserve better.”
Trudeau believes that his main message — revitalizing the middle class in Canada — resonates particularly in the GTA suburbs.
This is going to be one of the Liberals’ chief battlegrounds against the Conservatives in the next few years, Trudeau said, and he believes there are better ways to gain the support of suburban voters than through the “micro-targeting” methods the Tories favour, appealing to selected constituencies.
“The suburbs have been targeted by transactional politics of the Conservatives, reached out to in very strategic ways,” he said. Trudeau said he wants to show Canadians that politicians can “say the same thing from one end of the country to the other and find resonance.”
He praised Mississauga as possibly “the most diverse community on Earth” and said the people who had flooded into the banquet hall were “the very heart of 21st century Canada.”
The turnout in Mississauga surprised even the organizers of the gathering. Former Liberal MPs Navdeep Bains and Omar Alghabra. Bains, gazing out on the crowd, called it “absolutely stunning.”
Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion was right up at the front of the crowd, too, telling the audience that Trudeau was a “great young man with a great future.”
Also on hand was Zaib Shaikh, star of the hit Canadian comedy Little Mosque on the Prairie, who said he has been “nudging” his friend in the direction of the leadership for several years. Shaikh, who is also a fierce advocate for diversity, introduced Trudeau to the crowd. The two bumped into each other in an Ottawa hotel lobby a few years ago and Shaikh was surprised about how much Trudeau knew of the international success of Little Mosque. They’ve been friends ever since and Shaikh was delighted when Trudeau decided to take the plunge into the Liberal race.
“I’m looking forward to meeting and talking with Canadians. To listening, to learning.” JUSTIN TRUDEAU LIBERAL LEADERSHIP CANDIDATE
“It is a big deal. He’s considered it greatly. I know that,” Shaikh said. “It ridiculous to think that someone would want to run a party or a country on name alone. No one thinks it . . . I just said (to him), ‘When you’re there, let me know and if you want me there to talk about it, I’m here.’ ” In his speech, Trudeau predicted that this blaze of attention for his campaign — which has featured big crowds in Montreal, Calgary and Richmond, B.C., too — would die down. Soon, he said, his campaign will start to focus on small communities and more intimate conversations with smaller groups of people. “The media has shown a certain passing interest in my campaign over the past few days. But soon they will move on. The lights will dim and the cameras will disappear,” he said. “My friends, I’m looking forward to that. I’m looking forward to meeting and talking with Canadians. To listening, to learning.” As he did at his Montreal launch, Trudeau cautioned Liberals against seeing his candidacy or any solutions as quick fixes for the party, now reduced to third-party status in the Commons and the polls. The audience was filled with older and younger people — the older ones coming because of affection for Trudeau’s father, Pierre; the younger ones attending because they saw Trudeau as a youthful change from politics as usual. Inderbal Athwal and his 18-yearold son, Pavninder, were there to sign on as supporters. “I’m a big fan of his father, first of all,” Inderbal Athwal said. “Everything starts from the bottom to up, so let’s start from the bottom, a fresh start, with Justin Trudeau. . . . He has a vision and he has roots. I believe his father’s genes have been passed on to the next generation.”