Controversy over Trudeau comments in Rolling Stone

This is a fascinating story. For those who don't know, Trudeau's rise to prominence came at a charity boxing event in which he manhandled Patrick Brazeau - a First Nations member who went on to ahve a spree of personal disasters afterward. I remembering telling my girlfriend at the time that Trudeau would be Prime Minister. I was right.

Well, it turns out that this might have been a scripted story. From some left wing Canadian site called PressProgress.ca:

In the new issue of the New York-based Rolling Stone magazine, Justin Trudeau reflects on his 2012 boxing match with Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau that began “Trudeau’s journey from backbencher to prime minister.” 

Five years later, Trudeau tells Rolling Stone that selecting Brazeau for the spectacle “wasn’t random,” explaining that the Senator “fit the bill” for “the right story to tell” because he had the look of a “good foil” – a “scrappy tough-guy senator from an Indigenous community,” as Trudeau puts it: 

“Trudeau mischievously smiles when I ask how much of the boxing match had been planned out. ‘It wasn’t random,’ Trudeau says. ‘I wanted someone who would be a good foil, and we stumbled upon the scrappy tough-guy senator from an indigenous community. He fit the bill, and it was a very nice counterpoint.’ Trudeau says this with the calculation of a CFO in a company-budget markup session. ‘I saw it as the right kind of narrative, the right story to tell.'” 

Quite interesting.

The cynic in me suggests that this was not a desultory matchup, but rather a calculated marketing ploy designed to bolster Trudeau's image.

Since we are dealing with the son of the former Prime Minister, one wonders if Brazeau was paid to throw the match and perform poorly.