House of Commons.

To call the match sensational would be to understate the situation. It may have been for charity, but to think of it as just for fun would be to miss the vast and dramatic symbolism of the event. In Ottawa, it was a sensation.

The boxing match that marked the beginning of his meteoric rise to Canada’s highest office is revisited in a new film currently awaiting theatrical release called God Save Justin Trudeau.

The film-makers, Eric Ruel and Guylaine Maroist, were given unparalleled access and behind-the-scenes footage reveals that the participants – and even then prime minister Stephen Harper – were all too aware of the symbolic importance of the match. The Liberal party had been routed. The Conservatives were a political behemoth, having cast the Liberalsis played in full in the film, is nothing short of stark. Brazeau comes out swinging, but Trudeau absorbs his every punch, ducking and jumping back. He is light on his feet.

But the bigger senator, by contrast, lumbers around, always chasing, never properly managing to connect a punch. By the third round, he is exhausted, sweat pouring off him. Then Trudeau begins to punish him, pouring punch after punch until the referee steps in.

At no point does Justin Trudeau seem in even the slightest bit out of control. The visual effect of the metaphor is, by this point, inescapable – his victory, when it comes, is inevitable.

After the fight, Trudeau’s rise was meteoric. And, though his party was behind in the polls for much of the election campaign,