Lover/fighter

Susan Delacourt profiles Justin Trudeau at 40.

To mark his 40th birthday, he got another tattoo: a Haida raven on his left shoulder. And in the coming few months, he intends to put a check mark beside a big item on his lifetime to-do list — going three rounds in the boxing ring. His opponent will be Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau, a fit, 36-year-old who holds a second-degree black belt in karate and who reportedly told Trudeau he’d jump at the chance to clobber him in public.

“He’s a tough character. I’ve got my work cut out for me . . . I expect to get knocked down a few times,” Trudeau said. “But you know what? If there’s one thing I’ve shown over the course of my career and my life, I can take a punch.” Trudeau knows that Brazeau isn’t the only Conservative who would like to smack him around, and he gets some delight from this. “There’s something about me that makes them nutty,” he says, laughing.