PM Justin Trudeau dissolves Parliament, begins poll campaign
Ottawa, Sept. 11: Liberal Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces a tough general election on October 21, dogged by an ethics scandal that has taken the shine off his golden boy image and left him vulnerable to a sharp challenge from Conservative Andrew Scheer.
Also in pursuit of a bigger share of Canada's political pie are social democrat Jagmeet Singh and climate crusader Elizabeth May, who hope to deny the frontrunners a majority.
The first-born son of late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Justin Trudeau brought panache and progressivism to Canada's highest office when he first swept to office in 2015.
Handsome and youthful, the outdoorsman and teacher led the oncemighty Liberal Party back to power — echoing the "Trudeaumania" of his father's ascent.
The party had ruled for most of the last century, but had fallen on hard times until the younger Trudeau burst on the scene, rescuing it from third rank status.
Now older than his main rivals at 47, he enters the fray laden with baggage in the form of broken electoral promises and ethics breaches have cost him support — especially
among female, indigenous and young voters who gave him a landslide victory
four years ago.
Representing a gritty, working-class neighborhood of married
During his first term, he legalized cannabis, brought gender parity to the cabinet, resettled thousands of refugees and oversaw the largest military procurement in the nation's history to replace aging warships and fighter jets.
But his political agenda was often sidelined by diplomatic and trade rows with the US, China and Saudi Arabia. His climate strategy also triggered a revolt by several provinces.
And his party's expulsion of two women ministers critical of his meddling in a criminal prosecution — Montreal, he is with three children. one of them Canada's first indigenous attorney general -- earned him strong rebukes.
The scandal also left him open to criticism for failing to live up to a promise to do politics differently.
After working as an insurance broker, Andrew Scheer entered politics in 2004, representing a district in the prairie province of Saskatchewan.
Keenly interested in lawmaking nuances, he became Canada's youngest ever speaker of the House of Commons in 2011 at the start of the Tories' last term in office.
At 40 — after narrowly beating a former foreign minister for the Conservative leadership in 2017 — he is now the main challenger to Trudeau.
Going into the campaign, Scheer assailed Trudeau over ethics, deficit spending and foreign policy -vowing a tougher stance on China over its detention of two Canadian nationals and its ban on agricultural shipments.
He also vowed to scrap a federal carbon tax as his first act of governing, if elected.
Affable but more comfortable perusing policy papers than gladhanding voters, he has been likened to his dour Conservative predecessor, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but "with a smile."