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Stephen Harper imposed an outer perimeter of control, one suspects, because he worried about his lack of inner control – the fear that he might lose it in public.

Justin Trudeau apparently has no such concerns. He held a town-hall in Nanaimo, B.C., in front of an audience that was vocal and hostile to his government’s decision to back the construction of the $7.4 billion Kinder Morgan pipeline.

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As he entered the room, one man shouted: “You’re a snake, you’re a liar.”

He was drowned out repeatedly until he came close to losing his cool and confronted his accuser. “Come on, come on. Really? Are you going to respect the people in this room? If not, you need to leave,” he said.

The police were called in to eject the prime minister’s noisiest critics, but the heckling continued throughout, as if a number had been drinking on an empty head.

Trudeau’s willingness to tolerate the abuse was indicative of his tendency to take political risks – as he did when he fought Sen. Patrick Brazeau; as he did when he decided the Liberals would campaign on running deficits in 2015.