Liberal MPs gather to plot strategy for fall session of Parliament

GEORGETOWN, P.E.I. – It’s back to school for Liberal MPs and senators.

They’re meeting today at a Prince Edward Island resort to plot strategy for the resumption of Parliament in October and beyond, for the next election in 2015.

Justin Trudeau is presiding over his first annual summer caucus retreat as leader.

He says Liberals have a lot of reasons to be optimistic, that Canadians are excited about what he calls his “new way of doing politics.”

But he warns there’s still “an awful lot of hard work” ahead to bring the party back into contention by the next election, after being reduced to a third-party rump in 2011.

Since Trudeau became leader in April, the Liberals have vaulted into first place in opinion polls, a status that has not so far been dented by his frank admission he smoked marijuana after becoming an MP.