Marc Garneau in 1984 was one of just six applicants — among more than 4,000 — accepted into Canada’s astronaut program.

Some would say the Liberal leadership aspirant faces similar odds in taking on Justin Trudeau.

People laud the 62-year old Garneau — astronaut and naval engineer, Order of Canada recipient, former president of the Canadian Space Agency, and one-time chancellor of Carleton University — for having a terrific curriculum vitae and even being just plain nice.

“Yes, I am nice,” he recently told a reporter. “But people don’t get where I am today without being tough.”

Garneau, a parliamentarian since 2008, is widely considered Trudeau’s main competition.

But nearly everyone expects the MP for Westmount-Ville Marie to place a distant second in the April 14 vote to replace interim Liberal leader Bob Rae.

To some degree that may be because Garneau’s father was a military officer and not one of Canada’s highest-profile prime ministers. Nor does Garneau have the youth, charisma or tousled locks of Trudeau.

Two Liberal MPs are supporting Garneau’s candidacy; Trudeau is backed by 10 MPs, nearly a third of the Grit caucus.

Garneau, interviewed earlier this week after three days of campaigning and fundraising in Vancouver, insists he’s undaunted.

He says his campaign is “in good shape,” that he is the candidate with the proven record. He ran agency of 700 employees with a $300-million budget. He is confident he’ll win.

He says he doesn’t know how much cash his campaign team has raised; Trudeau has so far taken in $600,000.

Garneau knows Liberals must boost support in the West and says he’d be well placed to represent Westerners.

He spent a lot of time in Calgary as a board member for an energy company and lived two summers in Esquimalt while doing his naval training.

Garneau says he is not yet ready to give his support to the Northern Gateway pipeline project or to oil tanker traffic off B.C.’s north coast.

Decisions need to be based on science and be respectful of aboriginal interests, Garneau insists, criticizing the Harper Conservatives for antagonizing British Columbians by attacking “radical environmentalists” and granting cabinet final say over the project.

Garneau says he’s generally supportive of oilsands development but would like to see a price put on carbon.

He also favours legalizing, while regulating, the sale of marijuana, as long as that would not cause problems at the Canada-U.S. border.

The Liberal candidate agrees with Stephen Harper on one thing: government’s No. 1 priority must be the economy.

But he favours a more diversified economy so that Canada isn’t overwhelmingly reliant on natural resources.

The father of four talks about combining fiscal discipline with progressive social policy. He speaks of “a fair, compassionate and progressive Canada,” last week urging the PM to meet with Chief Theresa Spence who is conducting a hunger strike to press demands for a better aboriginal relationship with the Crown.

Garneau has ruled out alliances with New Democrats or Greens, though he supports changes to the federal voting system to ensure greater fairness.

If majority opinion is correct and Garneau indeed is in second place among the seven leadership wannabes, that’s not such a bad place to be.

Consider, with three months to go until the vote, Trudeau might mess up enough to raise doubts about his political readiness.

In which case, the former astronaut who is in second place, is bound to rocket skyward.

byaffe@vancouversun.com

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