Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, recently announced his decision to resign as the leader of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister of Canada. He will step down once his party elects a new leader in March 2025.
Trudeau rose to worldwide prominence after he swept to power in the fall of 2015 at the age of 43, leading his Liberal Party to a decisive win over the incumbent Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He was a breath of fresh air after nine years of conservative government, which many thought had polarized the people due to its hardline policies on social issues.
With his youth, good looks and telegenic family Trudeau became an instant sensation globally. His charm, charisma, and seductive smile brought him a rock star status. Trudeau became a media sensation and found his face — not to mention his sharp suits and colourful socks — splashed across magazines worldwide. Throngs of people gathered whenever he was spotted in public. On his first foreign trip in November 2015, he was mobbed at a Manila conference centre and had to be whisked away by his security team.
A self-proclaimed feminist and a champion of diversity, equity, and inclusion, Trudeau had promised gender parity in his cabinet as part of his election platform. He delivered on this promise and his first cabinet had an equal number of men and women. There were seasoned politicians, new faces, technocrats, and members of ethnic and Indigenous communities in his cabinet. This was the most diverse and inclusive cabinet in Canadian history.
After the initial honeymoon period of a couple of years, the headwinds started in Trudeau’s direction. In 2017, Trudeau found himself at the centre of an ethics scandal by accepting a vacation, gifts, and flights from the Aga Khan. The independent Ethics Commissioner of Canada investigated and ruled that Trudeau indeed had broken conflict-of-interest rules and sanctioned him. This was the first time in Canada that a prime minister was found guilty of breaking ethics rules and sanctioned. Trudeau’s popularity however helped him survive this scandal.
Seeing Trudeau’s plunging popularity, his caucus in parliament grew concerned and began to view him as a liability. They started demanding that it was time for Trudeau to step down and allow the party to elect a new leader
The highlight of Trudeau’s first term proved to be the successful renegotiation of the trilateral trade treaty North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the US and Mexico. During his first presidential campaign in 2016, Donald Trump sharply criticized NAFTA as unfair to US businesses. He promised to pull the US out of it unless it was renegotiated to his liking. This agreement was crucial for the Canadian economy. Trudeau and his team skillfully renegotiated this treaty with an aggressive and unpredictable President Trump and managed to preserve it with a few changes.
By the end of his first term in 2019, Trudeau’s initial popularity had significantly diminished. However, in the 2019 election, his party still won the most seats in Parliament, but it was not enough to form a majority government. The minority government situation forced Trudeau to work with the opposition parties and compromise on social policy issues.
The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 posed a major challenge to Trudeau’s leadership. He managed this crisis well by appearing on television almost daily for months, reassuring Canadians about government actions to deal with the pandemic, and announcing programs to provide financial assistance to the most affected people.
Sensing an opportunity after successfully managing the Pandemic Trudeau called an early snap election in 2021 hoping that voters will reward him with a majority government. Instead, the election produced more or less the same outcome as the previous one, and Trudeau was forced to lead another minority government. This time though he was able to strike a deal with a smaller opposition party to adopt and implement some of their policy proposals in exchange for their support in the parliament to keep the minority government alive for a longer period. While this allowed Trudeau some breathing space in the Parliament his popularity continued a downward slide due to high inflation, escalating cost of living, rising unemployment, housing crisis, and people’s fatigue with the incumbent government that appeared tired and out of ideas. His party’s devastating loss in byelections of a few ‘safe’ seats only confirmed voters' anger toward Trudeau.
Seeing Trudeau’s plunging popularity, his caucus in parliament grew concerned and began to view him as a liability. They started demanding that it was time for Trudeau to step down and allow the party to elect a new leader who might have a fighting chance to win the next election expected in 2025. Trudeau continued to resist the pressure insisting that he still has what it takes to win the next election.
History will remember Trudeau as a young man who came on the political scene as a breath of fresh air rebuilt his party from the ruins, and led it to three consecutive election wins but also as someone who lost touch with ordinary people and overstayed his welcome.
The last straw in Trudeau’s downfall came when his longtime lieutenant, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland abruptly resigned due to policy differences with Trudeau in the morning of the day when she was supposed to provide a fiscal update in the parliament. Her resignation pushed the government into turmoil and set off new calls for Trudeau to step down as opposition parties called for a no-confidence vote in parliament that Trudeau would not have survived. Seeing the writing on the wall, Trudeau finally announced his resignation.
The strains of being prime minister also affected Trudeau’s personal life. In separate statements in August 2023, Trudeau and his wife Sophie announced they were separating after 18 years of marriage. The couple, who have three children, had talked frankly about difficulties in their relationship.
When Trudeau got elected as the leader of the Liberal Party in 2013 his party was in deep trouble and was reduced to a third party status in the parliament. He worked tirelessly to rebuild the party, traveled across the country, and inspired many youths to join the party. He also brought several technocrats and business leaders into the party fold to offer a strong alternative ‘government-in-waiting’ to the voters to replace the incumbent Conservative government. In two short years his hard work and upbeat message of ‘sunny ways’ ahead, paid off, and electorates voted his party to a strong majority in the parliament and he became prime minister.
Justin Trudeau, the son of longtime former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, was born into the public eye and inherited his father’s sense of style and showmanship. His family comes from an aristocratic background. He blamed many of his missteps in public life on his privileged upbringing. In the months before his resignation, it became clear that he was out of touch with the public. He continued to prioritize social policy issues and expensive climate change initiatives while the economy was worsening and people were struggling to make ends meet.
History will remember Trudeau as a young man who came on the political scene as a breath of fresh air rebuilt his party from the ruins, and led it to three consecutive election wins but also as someone who lost touch with ordinary people and overstayed his welcome. By delaying his decision to resign he is not leaving much time for his yet-to-be-elected successor as party leader to prepare for the next general election in the next few months. It will not be a surprise if after the election his party ends up in the same sorry state as it was when he assumed its leadership more than a decade ago or even worse.
Trudeau now 53, still has energy and several productive years ahead. In an interview in December 2024, he said that when his father was his age, he still had a dozen (out of 15) years of prime minister ahead of him. Time will tell if at some point he will make a comeback in public life in some capacity.