Justin Trudeau: The sexiest, hippest world leader ever
MANILA, Philippines - Justin who? Not Justin Bieber, all ye YouTube crazies out there, but Canada’s newly installed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, only 43 (he was born on Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 1971), who’s hogging the YouTube these days, having been tagged as the “world’s sexiest politician.”
The 64 (Canadian) dollar question is: Will Justin Trudeau, the youngest head of state attending this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in the Philippines, bare his six pack abs?
We’re abs-olutely hoping he does. Like when he did a steamy striptease — for a good cause, of course! But surely, he was good reason enough for assorted oglers to pack the place to the rafters.
Tall and dashing with earth brown curly hair and a dazzling smile, he could have leaped out of a GQ cover (fact is, he’s been on not a few magazine covers).
He showed off his to-die-for buffed body in full public view — including a large tattoo on his left arm — at a charity boxing match vs. his political rival Patrick Brazeau. And the winner? In this corner, sporting an intriguing tattoo, Justin Trudeau!
Justin may not be the only world leader in history with a tattoo (US President Teddy Roosevelt had his family crest tattooed on his chest while Andrew Jackson had a tomahawk inked on his thigh), but he’s probably the first to display it candidly, making no bones about it!
Explaining his tattoo, he tweeted: “My tattoo is planet Earth inside a Haida raven. The globe I got when I was 23; the Robert Davidson raven for my 40th birthday.”
Note: The Trudeau family became honorary members of the Haida tribe during the second prime ministerial term of Justin’s father, the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
But sorry, ladies, the guy is happily married — to Sophie Gregoire, a Quebec TV and radio host whom he met in Montreal when he was asked to host the 2003 Starlight Children’s Foundation gala. “We had a great time chatting that night and, by the end of the gala, I knew she was a very special woman,” recounts the young drama, math, and French teacher.
After weeks of emails and phone calls, Justin and Sophie went out on their first date — they had Afghan food at Khyber Pass on Duluth.
Justin must have been gravely serious about Sophie that he took her to visit his father’s gravesite in Saint-Remi on Oct. 18, 2004. There, Justin quietly asked for his dad’s blessing on his 85th birthday. A few hours later, over candlelit dinner at an Old Montreal hotel room, “I asked her to marry me so we could build a life together. We have been together ever since.”
Justin confesses, “All my life, I had wanted more than anything to become a dad. I was inspired by the extraordinary father I’d had, the example he set for me to follow.”
And so came one bundle of joy after another: Xavier James Trudeau was born on Oct. 18, 2007 — the day his grandfather would have turned 88. He was a happy fat baby with his mother’s green eyes and grew to become strong and athletic like his father. Sixteen months later, on Feb. 5, 2009 came Ella-Grace Margaret Trudeau with blonde hair like her mom’s. Five years later, a third child, Hadrien, joined the growing Trudeau brood.
Surrounded by his happy family, Justin Trudeau shares, “Being away from my wife and young family to serve as an MP (Member of Parliament) and leader of the Liberal Party is always very tough, but I also find it useful in giving me perspective. It prompts a few simple questions: Is the time I spend away from my family worth it? Was I building a better future for them, focused on serving the world they would grow up in?”
Family has a soft spot in Justin’s heart. The charismatic leader whose Liberal Party won by a historic landslide, ending a nine-year Conservative Party rule, underscored the need for family reunification, for “a stronger and better immigration policy to make communities grow and eventually build a future for the new generation of immigrants.”
Waves News editor Tenny Soriano tells us, “One of the priorities of the new prime minister is to revive the family reunification program which was suspended by the restrictive past administration. He’s also looking into reviewing the caregivers program that would benefit a lot of Filipinos.”
“This surely appeals very strongly to some 700,000 Filipino Canadians (Canada has a population of only about 38 million),” asserts former Philippine Press Club Toronto president Ricky Caluen. “Many aging Filipino immigrants are sentimental about how their admission to Canada was facilitated by the very welcoming and liberal policy initiated by the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau. If only for this, many Pinoys — as did other immigrants — voted for the Liberals out of utang na loob.”
“Yes, I voted for him because his platform promised real change — to create jobs, grow the middle class, strengthen the economy,” says Myrna Soriano, Waves News marketing manager.
Truly immigrant-friendly, Trudeau promised to reopen Canada’s doors and double the number of applications allowed for parents and grandparents to 10,000 each year. The new government vowed to double the budget for processing family class sponsorship and reduce the wait time. It promised to grant immediate permanent residency to new spouses entering Canada, eliminating the two-year waiting period.
Truly a friend of Filipinos, Trudeau has graced many a Pinoy event in Canada. At the Filipinos Making Waves Festival in 2003, he himself made waves with the guests. “He was attracted to our pancit and lumpiang shanghai,” relates Tenny. “He was the highest federal official to attend a Filipino event in Toronto, Canada.”
Trudeau was mobbed by both Filipino and foreign spectators and greeted with shouts of “Pogi, pogi, Ser Chief” (referring to the popular teleserye Be Careful with My Heart).
Now you know what’s in Justin’s Trudeau — I mean, to-do — list. Awesome guy, eh? Oui!
