“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner

Op-Ed Commentary

I’ve always said if someone says it better, let them say it. So here goes: “Five years ago today, Justin Trudeau beat the shit out of a senator.”

Excuse the salty language, but that’s what Vice Media journalist Josh Visser wrote March 31, 2017 to mark the fifth anniversary of one of the weirdest events in Canadian political history and the history of boxing too.

The occasion was a charitable fundraiser for Fight for the Cure and Trudeau’s opponent was former Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau, who was appointed a Quebec Senator by Prime Minister Stephen Harper Dec. 22, 2008 and had a scandal-plagued career before and after his fight with Trudeau.

But most people thought it was Trudeau who faced trouble when he stepped into the ring to face his stocky, 200-pound opponent who also fought vigorously for aboriginal rights and reform of the Indian Act.

Not yet prime minister, Trudeau stood a lithe six-foot-two with no fat on his frame while his challenger was a little on the chubby side and didn’t work out regularly in the gym as the aspiring prime minister did.

Nevertheless, when the bell rang for Round 1, it was Brazeau who came out of his corner smoking, battering Trudeau from one side of the squared circle to the other and his foe in clear retreat.

The highly partisan crowd went wild. I was watching the fight myself on TV and I remember one of the announcers yelling words to the effect: “I’m from Alberta and I hate Liberals but even I hate to see a Liberal beat up like this.” Prescient words, but it was only Round 1.

Despite my credo of non-violence, I’m an unabashed fight fan and I’ve seen most of the great fighters on TV over the years including Muhammed Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Joe Lewis et al and it’s one of the precepts of these great champions to feel out your opponent in the early rounds because most fights are won late in the match, not early.

Patrick Brazeau clearly didn’t know this or didn’t care.

In Round 2, instead of covering up all the time, Trudeau started to take advantage of his reach, his flashy left jab and his conditioning. Brazeau started to run out of gas. With Brazeau’s face covered in blood, the ref ordered him to take a standing eight count, which he did on trembling legs and puffing heavily from bursting lungs.

Round 3 began with Brazeau using his bloodied head like a battering ram to get inside and pound on Trudeau’s barely sweating chest, but to no avail. The referee ordered another standing eight count and shortly halted the one-sided slaughter because Brazeau could no longer defend himself.

Long after the match, Brazeau consoled himself by saying Trudeau got elected prime minister six years later because the public was so impressed by his bravura performance in the fight. He may be right.

Now it’s September 2024 and Trudeau is facing a much bigger fight that many say he can’t win. Even some of his cabinet ministers are saying that and quitting their posts.

Recent stunning Liberal by-election defeats in Quebec and Ontario strongholds mean only one thing they say – a catastrophic Liberal defeat in the next federal election followed by a total party collapse as happened to the Conservatives in 1993 when Brian Mulroney resigned, and the party was reduced to two seats.

Good-bye Justin Trudeau. Hello Pierre Poilievre. Is it really coming to this? Maybe, but keep one thing in mind. Justin Trudeau is not an easy quitter.

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and a long-time devotee of the sweet science.

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