Easy, young fella

There might be plenty of reasons to believe Dominic LeBlanc is the right man to lead the Liberal party. His age, though, is not one of those reasons.

Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff are 60 and 61 respectively. If they were to take office before their 65th birthdays, they’d be younger prime ministers than Tupper, Abbott, Bowell, St. Laurent, Pearson and Martin. Diefenbaker was nearly 62. Bennett was just past 60 and Chretien was just short of that mark.

Mr. LeBlanc is 40. Eight prime ministers took office before they were 50—including Trudeau, King, Harper and Mulroney. Seven of those though were older than 45. Indeed, the only prime minister to take office earlier was Joe Clark, at 39 years and 364 days. And we all know how well that went.