In less than a year in office, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has drawn global attention for his youth, celebrity appeal and progressive policies.
There’s a lot to know about Trudeau. But as Friday marks Canada Day, here are a few lesser known facts about the country’s popular prime minister.
Richard Nixon predicted his future
When Trudeau was just a baby—and his father Pierre the prime minister of Canada—U.S. President Richard Nixon joked at a state dinner in 1972 that the infant Trudeau would one day succeed his father. “Tonight, we’ll dispense with the formalities,” Nixon said back then, “I’d like to propose a toast to the future Prime Minister of Canada — Justin Pierre Trudeau.”
Marvel thinks he’s superhero material
He will appear on the cover of a Marvel comic book this summer. Trudeau is depicted as a fighter in a boxing ring, wearing an appropriately patriotic maple leaf uniform while surrounded by the Canadian superhero team, Alpha Fight. The writer and artist who designed the issue acknowledged, “this is basically Trudeau fan fiction.”
But handshakes are apparently his kryptonite
The Canadian Prime Minister found himself in the middle of a painfully awkward three-way handshake with Obama and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto this week, when they convened for the “Three Amigos” Summit.
Read more: Read the Remarks From the ‘Three Amigos’ Summit Press Conference
He has an edgy tattoo
Trudeau has a tattoo on his upper left bicep. “My tattoo is planet Earth inside a Haida raven,” he tweeted in 2012. “The globe I got when I was 23; the Robert Davidson raven for my 40th birthday.” In 1976, the Trudeau family was made an honorary member of the Haida tribe, which is indigenous to Canada’s Pacific northwest, the BBC reported.
He had a brief career on the small screen
Trudeau portrayed Canadian war hero Talbot Papineau in a CBC historical drama, The Great War, before he was first elected to Canadian Parliament in 2008.
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