OTTAWA—Justin Trudeau will walk into the House of Commons on Monday as the new leader of the Liberal party — with expectations for him flying as high as his decisive victory in the leadership race.

Garnering more than 80 per cent of the vote tally on Sunday, Trudeau handily won the job that his late father, Pierre Trudeau, held for 16 years in the 20th century.

His victory, then, is already historic: a rare family dynasty in the making in Canadian politics.

But the task now facing Trudeau is the more pressing question about the future: whether he can rebuild the Liberals from their third-place standing back to the powerful, political force they once were in Canada.

Before about 1,000 cheering Liberals gathered in Ottawa on Sunday night, Trudeau said that task shouldn’t be underestimated.

“Let us be clear-eyed about what we have accomplished. We have worked hard and we have had a great campaign. We are united, hopeful and resolute in our purpose,” he said. “But know this: we have won nothing more and nothing less than the opportunity to work even harder.”

He served notice, though, that he intends to campaign as Liberal leader in the same way as he campaigned for the job, with optimism rather than negativity, and beyond the nasty, personal partisanship that prevails in Ottawa.

The results of the week’s voting weren’t even close. Under the Liberals’ new system, each riding in Canada was worth 100 points, allocated according to the percentage of support each candidate received. The winner needed 15,401 out of 30,800 points, and Trudeau won 24,000.

His closest rival, Vancouver MP Joyce Murray, won 3,130. Former MP Martha Hall Findlay won 1,760, former cabinet minister Martin Cauchon earned 810, and candidates Deborah Coyne and Karen McCrimmon won only a little more than 200 each.

Trudeau will be in the Commons on Monday to take up his role as leader and to face reporters’ questions in the foyer afterward. His campaign advisers said he intends to spend the next few weeks putting a transition plan in place, though he will also visit Labrador, where hopes are also running high for Liberals to take away a seat from the Conservatives in the May 13 byelection.

Trudeau conducted a leadership campaign that attracted nearly viral levels of public attention and crowds of adoring fans: 10,000 volunteers alone and thousands of new party supporters signed up in the past six months.

Many of those volunteers were in the crowd Sunday night, wearing “Justin” scarves, tears streaming down their faces, as the result was announced.

As well, repeated polls in recent days and weeks have shown that a Trudeau-led Liberal party could sweep over its rivals, even the Conservative party.

Conservatives wasted little time in “welcoming” Trudeau to the fray, issuing a news release that announced “he doesn’t have the judgment or experience to be Prime Minister.”

That theme is expected to be reinforced with the Conservatives’ now-familiar brand of attack ads on Liberal leaders. Trudeau said he’s ready for it.

“The Conservative Party will now do what it does. It will try to spread fear. It will sow cynicism. It will attempt to convince Canadians that we should be satisfied with what we have now,” Trudeau said in his acceptance speech.

However, he said, “it is not my leadership that Mr. Harper and his party fear. It’s yours. There is nothing that these Conservatives fear more than an engaged and informed Canadian citizen.”

The New Democrats, keen to keep the Liberals down in third place, will also have Trudeau in their sights as they present themselves as the main progressive opposition to the Conservatives.

In a statement, the Tories congratulated Trudeau on his win but immediately cast doubt on this ability to lead the country.

“Justin Trudeau may have a famous last name, but in a time of global economic uncertainty, he doesn’t have the judgment or experience to be prime minister,” the party said in a statement.

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Trudeau spent some of his acceptance speech talking directly to Quebec, which forms the backbone of the NDP’s current strength in Parliament. The province also had a troubled relationship with his father by the end of his tenure in the 1980s.

“I take nothing for granted. I understand that trust can only be earned. And my plan is to earn yours,” Trudeau said, urging Quebecers to be builders of Canada again.

But Trudeau also had some pointed messages for his own party, riven by factional infighting for much of the past few decades, torn between loyalties to past leaders such as Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, who were on hand Sunday night in Ottawa.

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