Justin Trudeau: 'Just watch me' beat Harper

Justin Trudeau cheekily invoked one of his late father’s most famous quips when asked by a fellow passenger about his chances of beating Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the next election.

"Justin, Can you really beat Harper? Wishing you all the best!" Halifax resident Michael Kydd scribbled out on a sheet of lined writing paper that he passed to Trudeau on a sparsely-filled Porter Airlines flight Tuesday night.

"Just watch me," the Liberal leadership front-runner responded in the signed note he handed back.

Trudeau’s response is, of course, a nod to the famous answer his father, Pierre Trudeau, gave in 1970 when asked by a reporter how far he was willing to go to stop militant Quebec separatists during the FLQ crisis.

"Just watch me," the elder Trudeau responded.

Kydd excitedly posted the note to Twitter Tuesday night. "Sent this note to @JustinTrudeau on a plane just now. Cool response!" he tweeted.

Trudeau himself later confirmed the note came from him.

"Yup, it was me," he wrote in response to requests from reporters for confirmation Wednesday morning. "Late night flight back on Porter from Halifax, escaping the storm."

Kydd said he now had "a great story" for his children.