Justin Trudeau latest: Canadian PM ‘ready to resign’ as early as today over Trump row

If Justin Trudeau doesn’t resign, he could still be forced out as Canadian prime minister.

This would have to be done by the Canadian parliament – as there is no formal mechanism in the Liberal party to remove Mr Trudeau if he wanted to stay.

Canadian governments must retain the confidence of the House of Commons – any vote on budgets or spending which are lost by the government are considered a vote of no-confidence, and the government falls.

An election will usually take place immediately.

The House of Commons will not return until January 27 this year, and the government can use procedural manoeuvres to avoid being brought down on spending measures.

But they will need to allocate a few days to opposition parties to bring forward motions on any matter, including no-confidence.

Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party which has helped prop up Mr Trudeau’s Liberal minority government, indicated before Christmas that he would present a formal no-confidence motion in when the House of Commons returns.

If the current government allocated opposition days at the end of this parliamentary session, the last 10 days of March are the most likely time that Trudeau would be brought down, triggering an election in May.

When Justin Trudeau became the Canadian prime minister in 2015, people were still using that thing called Facebook. I can remember well the frothing posts by female friends, none of whom could contain their excitement at the election of this hottie PM. Furthermore, they gushed at the notion that what made him hotter still was not only that he was young and handsome, he was a lovely liberal dude too, which made him even more super-duper guy.

(If my male friends had written about an equally attractive female prime minister in such a way, they might well have been cancelled, but let’s park that.) As far as my friends were concerned – and to be fair, Trudeau had plenty of male fanboys – here was the perfect Generation X politician, and all would surely be well in his good hands.

It certainly doesn’t look like that any more because, at the time of writing, it looks like Trudeau is on his way out.

Read the full piece from Guy Walters in December:

If Justin Trudeau resigns as prime minister before the Canadian election in October, the Liberal party will name an interim to take over while it sets up a special leadership convention.

These conventions can take months to arrange, leaving the Liberals at risk of going into an election without a prime minister chosen by members – which has never happened in Canada.

While the party could run a shorter-than-usual process, it could upset candidates who feel this puts them at a disadvantage, according to Reuters.

Whoever is named interim leader would not be named prime minister on a permanent basis, as tradition dictates the interim does not run as a candidate to lead the party.

Reports that Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was considering stepping down first emerged in mid-December, after his finance minister resigned over the Trump tariff row.

Chrystia Freedland, the finance minister and Mr Trudeau’s deputy prime minister, quit after clashing on the issue of how to deal with possible US tariffs.

Ms Freedland, 56, said at the time she was quitting Mr Trudeau asked her to take on a lesser post in government after they had argued for weeks over spending.

Her resignation came just hours before she was set to release Canada’s first economic plan since Donald Trump was elected to be the next US president.

In a stinging resignation letter, she described the possible tariffs as a “grave challenge” and questioned Mr Trudeau’s ability to deal with the threat.

The letter read: “Our country today faces a grave challenge. That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war.

“That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment.”

Ms Freedland was replaced as finance minister by Dominic LeBlanc, a member of Mr Trudeau’s inner circle.

Justin Trudeau is expected to announce his resignation this week, according to reports.

The Canadian Prime Minister, 53, may step down as early as Monday vacating the position of the head of Canada’s ruling Liberal Party after nine years in office, a source told Reuters and the Globe and Mail.

Sources told the Globe and Mail that they did not know definitely when Trudeau would announce his plans to leave but said they expect it would happen before an emergency meeting of Liberal legislators on Wednesday.

Mike Bedigan reports from New York:

In November, US president-elect Donald Trump took to social media to announce a unilateral batch of tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico.

“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

It was a response to the migration of people and import of drugs from these countries into the US, Mr Trump added.

Mr Trudeau said in early December that Canadians are “beginning to wake up to the real reality that tariffs on everything from Canada would make life a lot more expensive”, adding that he would retaliate if Mr Trump went ahead with them.

“Trump got elected on a commitment to make life better and more affordable for Americans, and I think people south of the border are beginning to wake up to the real reality that tariffs on everything from Canada would make life a lot more expensive,” Trudeau said.

Mr Trump has since been dishing out jibes towards Canada and Mr Trudeau, describing him as a “governor” of the United States’ “51st State”.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is expected to resign as early as today, according to reports.

It comes as his governing Liberal Party falters in the polls, and pressure grows over his handling of US president-elect Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on Canada.

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