Son of Late PM Pierre Trudeau Becomes Canada’s New Leader

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau waves with his wife Sophie Gregoire at the Liberal party headquarters in Montreal, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press via AP)

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“A sea of change here. We are used to high tides in Atlantic Canada. This is not what we hoped for,” said Peter MacKay, a former senior Conservative cabinet minister, shortly after polls closed in Atlantic Canada.

Harper, 56, visited districts he won in the 2011 election in an attempt to hang onto them. On Saturday, he posed with Toronto’s former crack-smoking mayor, Rob Ford, in a conservative suburb.

Former colleagues of Harper said he would be personally devastated to lose to a Trudeau, the liberal legacy he entered politics to destroy. Harper’s long-term goal was to kill the widely entrenched notion that the Liberals — the party of Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien — are the natural party of government in Canada, and to redefine what it means to be Canadian.

Hurt when Canada entered a mild recession earlier this year, Harper made a controversy over the Islamic face veil a focus of his campaign, a decision his opponents seized on to depict him as a divisive leader.

“Canadians rejected the politics of fear and division,” New Democrat leader Tom Mulcair said of Harper’s Conservatives.

Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, said Canadians rallied around the Liberals as the anti-Harper vote.

“It became not only a referendum on Mr. Harper but really a sweep for Mr. Trudeau as well,” said Antonia Maioni, a political science professor at McGill University.

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“A clash of values pushed Canadians to really think about what they wanted from a government and what kind of image they wanted reflected back from that government and I think that’s where Mr. Trudeau’s optimism and hope and idea of change captured people’s imagination.”

The New Democrats suffered a crushing defeat, falling to third place with 43 seats after winning official opposition status in the last election.

“I congratulated Mr. Trudeau on his exceptional achievement,” Mulcair said at a rally in Montreal.

Paula Mcelhinney, 52, from Toronto, voted Liberal to get rid of Harper.

“I want to get him out, it’s about time we have a new leader. It’s time for a change,” she said.