Justin Trudeau leadership race. On October 2, 2012, Trudeau held a rally in Montreal to launch his bid for the leadership of the Liberal Party. The core people on his campaign team were considered longtime friends, and all in their 30s and 40s. His senior advisor was Gerald Butts, the former President of WWF-Canada who had previously served as principal secretary to former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty. Other senior aides included campaign manager Katie Telford, and policy advisors Mike McNeir and Robert Asselin, who had all worked for recent Liberal Party leaders. His brother Alexandre also took a break from his documentary
Justin Trudeau André Ouellet, a senior minister under his father, had been in Liberal hands for 53 years before falling to the Bloc Québécois in 2006. Trudeau faced off against Mary Deros, a Montreal city councillor and Basilio Giordano, the publisher of a local Italian-language newspaper for the Liberal nomination. On April 29, 2007, he easily won the party's nomination, picking up 690 votes to 350 for Deros and 220 for Giordano. Prime Minister Stephen Harper called an election for 14 October 2008, by which time Trudeau had been campaigning for a year in Papineau. On election day Trudeau narrowly defeated Bloc