Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today that he’d step down as head of the country’s Liberal Party, after weeks of speculation that his time in leadership was coming to an end.
In Canada, the head of the party with the highest number of seats in Parliament leads the country. Though Trudeau will no longer be the Liberal Party leader, he’ll remain prime minister until his party chooses a new leader, likely in the next two months. Canada must also hold a general election by October to choose a new government.
“I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust, nationwide, competitive process,” Trudeau — who has led the Liberal Party since 2013 and been prime minister since 2015 — said in a press conference Monday morning.
Trudeau and his party were initially popular: He had a 65 percent approval rating shortly after taking office nearly a decade ago. But they’ve suffered following a cost-of-living crisis due to inflation in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as criticism about the government’s immigration and environmental policies.
The end of Trudeau’s tenure as party leader and as prime minister was all but sealed last month after his one-time deputy Chrystia Freeland announced her departure from her post as finance minister. Her scathing resignation letter included criticisms about Trudeau’s ability to navigate the incoming Trump administration’s proposed tariffs on Canadian goods.
Monday’s announcement prompts serious questions about what comes next for a post-Trudeau Liberal Party and also for Canada.
Trudeau’s resignation is no surprise
Voters around the world — including in the US — rejected incumbents in elections last year. In recent months, polls have indicated that Canadian voters are also ready for a change. Trudeau’s popularity has decreased fairly steadily over the past year; he now has only a 22 percent approval rating, his lowest ever.
“In some ways, it’s not surprising that Canadians are just kind of fed up with the government, because you get to a certain point in your tenure where you’ve been in there for so long that it’s easy to look around and blame everything that’s wrong on the guy who’s been in charge for 10 years,” Elizabeth McCallion, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, told Vox in a December interview. “We’re reaching that limit where many Canadians don’t want Trudeau around anymore.”
The rejection of incumbents coincides with real issues in Canada, including the cost-of-living crisis and an affordable housing crisis brought on by the limited supply, population growth, and decades of divestment in social welfare for housing. Debate over the wisdom of the Liberal Party’s welcoming immigration policy and a carbon tax to reduce the country’s emissions has also escalated ahead of national elections.
“There’s a cost-of-living issue, and that’s affected lots of Western countries,” Andrew McDougall, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, told Vox in December. “That’s something that they’ve had to deal with. Housing has obviously been a big part of that for a lot of Canadians, and the immigration file has been one that [Liberals] have been harshly criticized recently on [for] allowing that situation to get out of control, and seeing a backlash in Canada.”
Conservatives, notably party leader Pierre Poilievre, have also linked the carbon tax — Trudeau’s signature environmental policy achievement — to the economic crisis, though the Liberal Party has disputed that the two are connected.
Rival parties’ political attacks on Liberals and their record have already proved potent, with Trudeau’s party losing what should have been safe seats in recent special elections.
“He’s been going through sort of a string of setbacks over the last couple of months,” including losing strongholds in Toronto and Montreal, McDougall said. “If you can’t win there, you really can’t win anywhere, was the suggestion.”
Freeland’s December resignation only renewed and intensified calls for Trudeau to resign, with some of those calls coming from members of his own party. It’s unusual for members of Parliament and government ministers to speak out against their party leadership, McCallion and McDougall explained, and Freeland’s departure showed just how unstable Trudeau’s party unity actually is. Conservatives are expected to make major gains in this year’s elections.
Where do the Liberals — and Canada — go from here?
It seems unlikely that the Liberals can win the next national election, no matter who they choose for their next party leader.
Thus far, no one has stepped up to replace Trudeau, although Freeland has been floated as a possible candidate. She is currently the frontrunner among Liberal voters and held a number of posts in Trudeau’s cabinet including foreign minister, trade representative, and most recently finance minister. Dominic LeBlanc, a Trudeau ally juggling multiple cabinet roles, is also a potential leader, and Transportation Minister Anita Anand, as well as former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, have also been discussed as replacements.
Whoever wins, it’s a period of reflection and reinvention for the party, McCallion said.
“I think parties often have these kinds of reckonings — it’s kind of a cyclical thing, ‘Who are we? What does our party stand for, and who is the best person to lead us in that fight?’” she said. “I do not think the entire Liberal Party is going off the cliff, in the sense that they’ll never come back from this, because the Liberal Party has been known as the natural governing party of Canada.” That’s because, McCallion added, “they tend to tailor their policies to what the median voter wants, and they’re really good at reinventing themselves and readjusting depending on what most Canadians are interested in at the time.”
The Liberals have until the end of March to find a new leader. That person will be elected by Liberal Party members throughout the country, and will represent the party in national elections, which, according to McDougall, could actually be called before the official October date.
Canadian general elections must occur at least every four years but can be triggered if the ruling party loses a no-confidence vote in Parliament. “The opposition parties [the Conservatives and New Democratic Party] have said that they want to bring down the government and trigger an election at the first opportunity,” McDougall said. The New Democratic Party has called for a no-confidence vote, and the Liberals are likely to lose it.
Perhaps the most pressing question in that election is who is best positioned to take on US President-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened tariffs of up to 25 percent on Canadian imports.
“[Conservative Party Leader] Poilievre has said he would fight [the tariffs] and he seems aligned with the provincial premiers, many of whom are conservative, in saying that they will make sure Canada holds its own and not bow to or fold under any 25 percent tariffs,” McCallion said. But members of the Trudeau government, notably Freeland, successfully negotiated a major trade deal with the US under the first Trump administration.
That experience, however, may not be enough to convince voters that the Liberals should stay in power, given the obstacles they’re facing.