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Justin Trudeau made an oath in October 2015, standing on a stage in front of a crowd of supporters. “Sunny way, my friends, sunny way,” he said, echoing the words of Canadian Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, more than a century earlier.
The Liberal Party had just won a commanding majority in the Canadian Parliament, and TrudeauThe son of one of the country’s most powerful postwar leaders, the progressive exuded a mood of liberal optimism.
In the darkness of economic stagnation and political unrest, he said on Monday He has resigned as the leader of his partyA move that would end his tenure as prime minister and draw a curtain on Canada’s latest Trudeau era.
Trudeau’s commitment to social causes, gender equality, indigenous rights and the fight against climate change earned him worldwide fame. Domestically the story was different: years of political infighting, scandals and lifestyle crises eroded his credibility and ability to lead the G7 nations.
“Every bone in my body has always told me to fight because I care deeply about Canadians,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa on Monday.
But Canadians’ view of Trudeau — like his father, who himself served two terms as the country’s prime minister for more than a decade — has always been deeply mixed. Admired by supporters as a paragon Canada’s He was vilified for his progressive values, particularly among conservatives in the west of the country, where skepticism about political authority ran deep.
In recent months, that skepticism has become the dominant view among most voters in Canada, who have told pollsters that his time as leader should be over.
Trudeau, 53, left the political ring after months of pressure from within his own party to resign. On Monday, he asked Governor General Mary Simon – King Charles’ representative in Canada – to suspend parliament until March 24 so the party can choose a new leader.
“There will be a national leadership process in the coming weeks,” Trudeau said, without adding who he endorsed as a successor.
Canadian pundits speculate that his one-time ally, former finance minister Chrystia Freeland – whose fierce attacks on Trudeau He resigned His political perils have deepened since his cabinet last month — his successors could be among them. Late Monday, former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney said he was considering a run for party leader.
But the first task of any new leader may be to prevent the party from collapsing in an election that now looks set to take place in the coming months, with the opposition Conservative Party far ahead in the polls.
With no clear succession plan in place and no date set for the next election, Canada enters a period of political uncertainty as it grapples with a volatile neighbour.
Trudeau unexpectedly tried to position himself as an experienced hand in dealing with Donald Trump Flying to Mar-a-Lago After the incoming president threatened tariffs on Canadian goods in November.
But Trump’s threat sparked panic in major exporting provinces like Ottawa and Alberta, and the president-elect repeatedly mocked Trudeau online — even after Monday’s resignation — describing the Canadian prime minister as the “governor” of the United States’ “51st state.”
Apart from his own political difficulties at home, Trudeau’s resignation echoes the fate of leaders in other Western democracies, where concerns about high inflation and immigration following the Covid-19 pandemic have helped many to step down.
Semra Savi, a political-science professor at the University of Toronto, said Trudeau’s domestic reputation has been irreversibly damaged by a backlash by lower- and middle-income families against his pandemic policies and a mismanagement of immigration policies that many voters believe have inflated housing affordability. the crisis
The Liberal leader at one point trumpeted Canada’s openness to immigrants and asylum seekers, inviting cameras to greet Syrian refugees at the airport in 2015. In October, Trudeau pledged to curb immigration.
“Trudeau’s initial rise was largely built on his charisma and progressive image. However, over the years, his reputation has been tarnished by alleged hypocrisy,” Savi said.
Trudeau’s progressive policies helped fuel opposition at home. He has promised ambitious climate change action and his federal government has imposed one of the most aggressive carbon taxes in the West, angering conservatives in the western province of Alberta, home to Canada’s lucrative oil industry.
To appease those opponents, the Trudeau government supported — and financed — a massive oil pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast. But its spending has ballooned and that has done nothing to stop western provinces from relentlessly attacking Trudeau over regulations and environmental policies they say are stifling economic prosperity.
There have also been controversies that eroded public trust, such as Trudeau’s 2017 vacation on the private island of philanthropist and spiritual leader the Aga Khan. In 2019, allegations that he improperly intervened in a fraud investigation by Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin, now Atkinsrealis, undermined Trudeau’s moral authority.
Ultimately, said Robert Asselin, a former economic adviser to the Trudeau government, a combination of poor governance, economic weakness and policy inconsistency led to its demise.
“Trudeau approached the prime ministership as a storyteller and communicator, often leaving people with the impression that he was acting rather than governing,” Asselin said.
In the past 12 months, five ministers have resigned from Trudeau’s cabinet and his Liberal Party has lost three safe seats.
Then came Freeland’s bombshell. Once seen as a personal friend of the prime minister, his bruising resignation letter last month blasted the prime minister for “expensive political maneuvering” to gain popular benefits such as sales-tax holidays.
The scandal has roped in a leader who has won three federal elections. Within days, the Liberals’ parliamentary ally, the left-wing New Democratic Party, called on Trudeau to resign and said they would no longer support the government in parliament. The prime minister stepped down on Monday ahead of an inevitable no-confidence vote that would topple his government and trigger a snap election.
Stephen Maher, author of princeA biography of Trudeau, says the leader’s political pressure speaks to his extraordinary confidence but also to the “presidentialization” of the Canadian prime minister’s role.
“Trudeau has only one gear. There are politicians who are able to pivot, shift and tell a different story to extend their shelf life. Trudeau is just: ‘Hey, I’m here, love me’ — that’s worked for about a decade,” Maher said.
An Angus Reid poll released on December 30 showed that only 16 percent of voters would support his party, while his disapproval rating reached 74 percent.
His Liberal government looks likely to be replaced – with an election to be called sometime this year – by a conservative party led by Pierre Poilivre, a far-right politician polling far ahead of Trudeau, who now has the backing of Trump ally Elon Musk.
It could mark a sharp shift in Canadian politics, moving the country from progressive to progressive and anti-immigration to a new era of Western democracy.
Nevertheless, Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s principal secretary from 2015-19, said he will be remembered as the leader who resurrected his Liberal party from the “political dustbin” after a decade of opposition.
“It was a wonderful achievement,” he said. “The government is crushing you, 10 years is a long time. He is not the first person in power whose optimistic nature has been spoiled by the government.”
