Canada’s new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, being carried under the arm of his father, Pierre Trudeau, who was prime minister at the time. Photo by Rod MacIvor/Ottawa Citizen

Justin Trudeau, Canada’s newly elected Prime Minister, wore a handpainted Angel shirt as a child, as did his two younger brothers. The shirts were bought for the kids by Robert Gerow, who was a friend of Justin’s mother, whose maiden name was Margaret Sinclair, the daughter of former North Vancouver Liberal cabinet minister James Sinclair.

Robert Gerow, who used to live in Gastown (Angel sold his jewellery for many years), had made the wedding rings for Margaret and Pierre Trudeau — they got married in North Vancouver in March 1971. Nine months later, Justin was born on Christmas Day, 1971.

Justin has strong connections to Vancouver, first working here as a snowboard instructor and nightclub bouncer. Later, after completing a teaching degree, he taught at two Vancouver high schools, including Sir Winston Churchill.

The Angel rainbow shirt I painted for Justin back in the 1970s was similar to this one:

Maybe one day, I’ll paint shirts for Justin’s wife Sophie and their three children.

I loved this photo taken election night — just before Justin Trudeau took the stage to give his victory speech, he stopped to hug his mother:

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Since this week’s election marks a return to optimism in Canada, today’s music video is Give Peace a Chance by John Lennon, which was recorded in Room 1742 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal (Justin Trudeau’s hometown and the same hotel where he gave his victory speech) during the famous “Bed In” honeymoon of John and Yoko. The song was released in 1969, followed a few months later by Instant Karma!, which featured George Harrison and was produced by Phil Spector.Here were Lennon’s hand-written lyrics for the song:Instant Karma! was released on Feb. 6, 1970, 10 days after Lennon wrote it. It appears Trudeau will move with similar dispatch to erase some of the the measures that displeased Canadians, implemented by the Harper government.