This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

[Video: Justin Trudeau explains it all for us. Thanks to the CBC.]

I tried to be all liberal and open-minded about it. I really did.

But there was something about that new president I just had a hard time accepting. I shouldn't have held it against him. It certainly was not a constitutionally disqualifying factor.

But for some time there it was really hard for me to get used to the idea that, for the first time ever, this new guy, Barack Obama, was president of the United States, even though he was — oh, just say it — younger than I am.

That's just not right. Presidents are important people. Which means, by definition, that they are your seniors. And when the first president you were aware of was Dwight Eisenhower, who seemed older than Mount Rushmore (he was 70 when he left office), it was just part of the job description.

It was hard enough to start seeing doctors, dentists and over-the-hill football players who were younger than me. (One dental technician who worked on me was younger than a couple of my fillings.) But Leader of the Free World? Creepy.

Obama's two most likely successors are, right now, either 68 (Hillary Clinton) or 69 (Donald Trump). Bernie Sanders is 74. Ted Cruz is chronologically only 45, almost 15 years my junior. But his religious and ethnic attitudes date from the 16th century, so that makes him the oldest of the bunch, really. Thus might any one of them restore what I used to think was balance to the time-space continuum.

But now I feel I'm going to miss all that youth and vitality when that young man and his whole attractive young family are term-limited out of the White House come January. A president who looks cool in sunglasses, holds his own on the basketball court and knows what to say when Prince dies has his charms.

So I'm voting for Justin Trudeau.

He's only 44. A good three years younger than Obama was when he took office. He's got a cute mop of hair, an attractive young family and he broke the internet a couple of weeks ago when he goaded a reporter into asking him to explain how quantum computing works, got the answer right and the video went quantum viral.

Things move so fast these days that, while we used to equate age with wisdom, we now associate youth with knowledge. Especially those of us who are getting up there and don't feel nearly as smart as we were sure we would.

Young Bill Clinton, at his best, left the impression that he could recite not only the whole Constitution but also the technical specifications for an F-18. Jimmy Carter gave off a whiff of that, too, but because he wasn't so young his image became less of a whiz kid and more of a micro-manager. And, fairly or not, Ronald Reagan made us think of someone who couldn't remember his own phone number.

What's that? Trudeau is the prime minister of Canada?

So? Cruz was born in Canada. And it says here Obama is from Kenya. (It's on the internet so it must be true.)

But Trudeau's got energy, brains and a platform that is just what this country — already missing Obama — could get behind. A self-proclaimed feminist (Why? "Because it's 2015."), welcoming of Syrian refugees, preparing to legalize marijuana, climate change activist, supporter of economic stimulus and infrastructure spending.

So, instead of so many Americans threatening to move to Canada if Trump gets elected, we can head that off and move an important bit of Canada here. With luck, our shared leader will bring universal health care, Tim Horton's coffee and donuts (the best) and CBC-TV news anchor Peter Mansbridge (the very best).

Constitution? What Constitution? We can do this.

In 1603, Elizabeth I died, as they said, "without issue." So James VI of Scotland also became James I of England. And in 1689, the English Parliament, having shooed away the Catholic James II, sent to Holland to invite Prince William of Orange and his wife, English-born Mary, to be their new Protestant rulers. The reigning Elizabeth is queen of the United Kingdom, and, if in name only, Australia and New Zealand. And Canada.

So, yes, if we brought Trudeau in to run the United States, as well as Canada, some of the who's ruling who stuff could get complicated.

Let's run that through one of Trudeau's quantum computers and work it all out.

George Pyle, a Tribune editorial writer, spent much of the George W. Bush administration in Buffalo, N.Y., so he could run to Canada really quickly if necessary. gpyle@sltrib.com