The holiday season is in the rearview mirror, but millions of frustrated Canadians were gifted a belated Christmas present. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking outside his Rideau Cottage residence on Jan. 6, announced that he has resigned as Liberal Party leader and will remain prime minister until his successor has been chosen “through a robust nationwide competitive process.” Will it be enough to save the Grits in the next election?
Justin Trudeau Resigns
Soon after former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland threw Trudeau under the bus in a scathing pre-Christmas letter, media reports suggested that the prime minister would spend the holidays sipping on a Tim Hortons tea, reflecting on his political future. Now that the tinsel has been taken down and credit cards have been maxed out, he and his team have reached a conclusion.
“I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide, competitive process,” he said during a Jan. 6 press conference. “Last night, I asked the president of the Liberal Party to begin that process. This country deserves a real choice in the next election, and it has become clear to me that if I’m having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election.”
Trudeau confirmed that he requested Governor General Mary Simon to prorogue the Canadian parliament until March 24, effectively suspending legislative activity.
“Parliament has been entirely seized by obstruction and filibustering and a total lack of productivity over the past few months,” the prime minister added. “We are right now the longest-serving minority government in history, and it is time for a reset.”
He also believes that removing himself from the equation could allow Ottawa to eliminate the daily polarization and help MPs do their elected job: focus on helping the Canadian people.
Reporters were quick to highlight the hypocrisy. In 2010, then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative, prorogued parliament to avoid a non-confidence motion. The Liberals, under Stephane Dion, and the press lambasted Harper and claimed it denigrated the democratic process. Fifteen years later, the Liberal leadership emulated the same action to save the party’s skin for a few more months.
What Now?
Nevertheless, this is welcome news for the Liberal caucus. In recent weeks, desperate members of parliament across British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada had been demanding the resignation. The Grits will now hold a national Liberal caucus meeting on Jan. 8. However, the damage had already been done, leaving the party’s brand battered and beaten.
It was also a relief for the nearly half of Canadians ready to wave goodbye. According to the latest Angus Reid poll, 46% of voters said Trudeau should step down.
So, now that the Liberal Party is searching for a new leader – the top names floated are Freeland, former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, and Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc – Parliament Hill will return to work preparing for a potential spring election. When the House of Commons resumes, Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre will likely attempt to topple the government again through a non-confidence motion, with the odds of its passage higher as one-time Trudeau ally and leader of the New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh, confirmed he would no longer back the Liberal-NDP coalition.
Poilievre and the Conservatives are poised for a super-sized victory, with 45% support. Singh and the New Democrats are second, increasing their support to 21%. This means that Trudeau’s Liberals plummeted to third, with only 16% intending to cast a ballot for the Grits. This is only slightly above the Bloc Quebecois.
Shortly after the announcement, Poilievre took to social media platform X to reiterate his call for an immediate “carbon tax election.”
“What has really changed?” Poilievre said in a video message. “Every Liberal MP in power today and every potential liberal leadership contender fighting for the top job helped Justin break the country over the last nine years.”
A national election must happen on or before Oct. 25, 2025.
Trudeau, elected three times since 2015 and promising “sunny ways,” disagrees. “Poilievre’s vision for this country is not the right one for Canadians,” he said to reporters, adding:
“Stopping the fight against climate change doesn’t make sense. Backing off on the values and strength, and diversity that Canada has always worked to pull itself together on is not the right path for the country. Attacking journalists, the CBC institutions, that’s not what Canadians need in this moment.
“We need an ambitious, optimistic view of the future, and Pierre Poilievre is not offering that, and I look forward to the fight as progressives across this country stand up for the kind of vision for a better country that Canadians have always carried despite the tremendous pressures around the world to think smaller, to veer towards the far right and to be less ambitious for what we can be and do as a country when the world really needs Canada.”
How Trudeau Changed Canada
With rising unemployment, stagnating growth, and slowing wages, many Canadian households might be indifferent to conservative criticisms of the government-funded broadcasting network. Still, whatever metric voters use to gauge the nation’s health, the same conclusion can be made: Trudeau’s Canada has dramatically changed since 2015 – and not for the better.
The national debt has doubled, exceeding $1.2 trillion. The current Liberal government has yet to post a budget surplus. The overall cost of living has rocketed 30% under Trudeau. The loonie has been depressed for several years, and the currency only recently popped when resignation news surfaced. The carbon tax has cost Canadian households, businesses, farms, and truckers billions of dollars, yet the minuscule drop in per-capita emissions mirrors pre-carbon tax levels. Food bank demand has surged 90% since 2019 to record highs. Crime is up, euthanasia represents a sizable share of national deaths, and scandals have rocked the Prime Minister’s Office. Housing affordability has been decimated, fueled in part by the government’s fumbling of the immigration portfolio, forcing Trudeau to apologize.
In the end, all the country has to show for a decade of Trudeau is a gimmicky two-month sales tax holiday and new woke words like “peoplekind” and “she-cession.” Billionaire Elon Musk may have shared the same thoughts as Canadians across the country: “2025 is looking good.”