In Canada, the Trudeau era is over

The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced his resignation stating that he will leave the post of prime minister as soon as ruling liberal party will choose a new leader after months of plummeting polls and internal divisions. “I intend to resign as leader of the party, as prime minister, after the party has chosen its next leader,” Trudeau, in power since 2015, told reporters in Ottawa, after a long political crisis in which the main allies of the liberals urge him to leave. It is unclear how long Trudeau will remain in office as interim prime minister. The elections are scheduled in the country by October 20th.

Trudeau said the Liberal leadership race will be “a robust and nationally competitive process.” Before taking the helm of the Liberal Party in 2013, Trudeau, now 53, was not a prominent political figure. His most important political attribute at the time was probably the fact that his father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, had been one of Canada’s most famous prime ministers. But Trudeau’s youthful energy and expertise on issues increasingly important to Canadians, including climate change, helped him unseat an entrenched Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, in the 2015 election. After more than nine years in power, Trudeau’s support within the Liberal Party began to waver last year. It collapsed after the surprise resignation in December of its former finance minister and deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland.

In a scathing resignation letter, Freeland accused Trudeau of focusing on political gimmicks to appease voters, including a costly Christmas tax holiday, instead of stabilizing Canada’s finances ahead of Trump’s promised tariffs. Trudeau’s Liberals are trailing the opposition Conservatives in the polls. Today the prime minister admitted he is not the best candidate to lead the Liberals to elections this year. “This country deserves a real choice in the next election, and it is now clear to me that if I have to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election.” Canadian media have indicated Freeland as a possible candidate to lead the Liberal Party, along with former Bank of England governor Mark Carney, a Canadian who also previously led the Bank of Canada.

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre said he is ready to take on whoever the Liberals propose. “Every Liberal MP and every leadership candidate has supported everything Trudeau has done for 9 years, and now they want to deceive voters by replacing another Liberal face to continue screwing Canadians for another 4 years,” he wrote on Trudeau’s announcement.

Trudeau’s government narrowly survived three votes of no confidence brought by the Conservatives to parliament at the end of last year. His minority government had been blocked by a deal with the left-wing New Democratic Party, but in December the NDP said it would vote to unseat Trudeau at the next opportunity. Trudeau confirmed that he had received permission from the governor general of Canada to suspend all parliamentary activities until March 24. This could give the Liberals time to choose a new leader, while limiting the opposition’s chances of submitting a vote of no confidence.