MONTREAL — It's do-or-die time for Justin Trudeau's maiden attempt at federal politics.

The eldest son of the late prime minister Pierre Trudeau faces what could be a difficult battle for the Liberal nomination in a blue-collar Montreal riding.

At a meeting Sunday, members of the Liberal association in Papineau will pick their riding's representative for the next federal election.

Although he's the son of a man revered by Liberals as their party's philosopher king, a coronation for the younger Trudeau appears unlikely.

Amid rumours of an anybody-but-Trudeau movement, a popular city councillor and an Italian-language newspaper editor are also vying for the nomination.

"I'm very comfortable. We have the numbers," said Basilio Giordano, a newspaper editor and former city councillor. "We worked hard, and we should be able to pull it off."

Various sources in the riding say the three candidates have each sold about 1,000 memberships.

Giordano predicted that if the nomination goes to a second ballot, a deal between the third-place finisher and one of the front-runners could clinch the result.

Trudeau has spent his days selling membership cards and glad-handing community leaders, while suspending his graduate studies for the last few weeks.

The 35-year-old has repeatedly insisted that this is how he wants it.

An unheralded passage from his most memorable public speech to date stressed that same message - that he wants to earn things through his hard work, not his name.

It was delivered from the altar of Montreal's grand Notre Dame Basilica, in the famous eulogy for his father that catapulted him back into the national consciousness.

"We knew we were the luckiest kids in the world - and that we had done nothing to actually deserve it," Trudeau said in the 2000 funeral address.

"It was instead something that we would have to spend the rest of our lives working very hard to live up to.

"(My father) gave us a lot of tools. We were taught to take nothing for granted. He doted on us, but didn't indulge."

Again last week he said in an interview that the nitty-gritty of a nomination battle is a golden opportunity for him because it gives him a chance to earn his way into politics.

His opponents might argue that he's still taking the fast track.

Both his competitors - Mary Deros and Giordano - have strong ties to lower-middle-class Papineau, which is home to several dozen ethnic communities.

Giordano calls his more famous opponent "a talented young man" but hastily adds: "I have been around in this community for the last 30 years."

By way of comparison, Trudeau's first home was 24 Sussex Drive, he spent his teenage years in the tony Montreal enclave of Westmount, and later lived in Vancouver where he was a high-school drama teacher.

He was a national celebrity the day he was born.

On Christmas Day 1971, he became the first child born to a sitting prime minister since the youngest daughter of Sir John A. Macdonald.

Some Liberals resent that star status.

And not all members of the party's Quebec wing are enamoured by the legacy of his father, who remains a polarizing figure in that province.

They worry that reminders of that legacy - namely a belief in a strong central government, disdain for Quebec nationalism, and patriation of the Constitution without Quebec's consent - could harm the party's rebuilding efforts there.

Also at play is a more timeless and parochial dimension of internal party politics: control of the local fiefdom.

Two of the most prominent Liberals in Quebec hold seats a stone's throw away from Papineau - Denis Coderre and Pablo Rodriguez.

Their clout within the party, and around any potential cabinet table, could only be hampered by Trudeau's esconcement in their backyard for the next decade or two.

Coderre and Rodriguez are officially remaining neutral. But there was a telling moment last week during an Earth Day parade in Montreal.

Witnesses said Rodriguez sent Trudeau away from the front of the parade with a blunt message: Don't stand here with us because you're not elected.

Trudeau's potential clout within the Liberal party was obvious at last year's leadership convention. He drew a rock-star-worthy following and adoring throngs at the convention, where he supported Gerard Kennedy.

He and other Kennedy delegates transferred their votes to Stephane Dion and ultimately guaranteed his victory. Coderre and Rodriguez were key Michael Ignatieff backers.

Until the leadership race, Trudeau kept a guarded distance from politics and downplayed questions about his own aspirations.

He broke his silence by blasting an Ignatieff proposal to recognize Quebec as a nation as small-minded idea.

The idea that a 35-year-old environmental geography student and former drama teacher could question the intellect of a world-renowned academic and award-winning author raised a few eyebrows.

"I don't know that he's spent a lot of time on constitutional matters," former Ontario premier David Peterson - an Ignatieff supporter - replied curtly. "(Ignatieff has) studied this issue deeply."

The Papineau riding belonged to Liberal cabinet heavyweights Andre Ouellet and, more recently, Pierre Pettigrew.

In 2006, it fell to the Bloc Quebecois as part of the Liberal party's collapse in the province following the sponsorship scandal.

Giordano was already looking ahead to the next election.

"(Trudeau)'s a very talented young man. He's not my opponent. . . . Our opponent is the Bloc Quebecois."