How Canada stopped loving Trudeau

Justin Trudeau has a special connection with Canadians, who have known him since he was born on Christmas Day 1971 as Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau son.

That connection helped him get his father's old job. In 2015, during his first federal election as Liberal leader, his Conservative opponents warned Canadians that he was a lightweight celebrity with great hair but no relevant work experience. Yet Trudeau, who grew up in public, brought a welcome dose of glamor to the humdrum world of Canadian politics. Voters liked him, felt they understood him, and decided to give him a chance in majority government.

This is an extraordinary victory unprecedented in Canadian politics. Trudeau is a former high school teacher with an unimpressive resume, but he has managed to take his Liberal Party from third place in 2011 (its worst performance in history) to first place with a resounding mandate. , echoing the “Trudeaumania” that swept the country when he was in power. Father won government in 1968.

Justin's election restored his father's vision of Canada as a bilingual, multicultural northern social welfare state. But he brought charisma, openness and fun to the table in place of his father's Jesuit-like intellectual precision. Trudeau promised Canadians a “sunny path” after a decade of stodgy, business-oriented Conservative governments and successfully pursued an ambitious progressive agenda, winning two elections. But after nine turbulent years as Canada's leader, he was forced to announce his resignation on Monday to avoid a revolt from Liberal members of parliament who face certain defeat in an election that must be held by October.

Trudeau will stay in office until a successor is chosen. But his stubborn refusal to acknowledge that his time is up has put him, his party and his country in a dire situation, with Donald Trump and Elon Musk bullying him and threatening to make Canada the 51st states. Trump will govern like a lame duck in his first months as president while his party chooses a leader to take on the combative conservative leader Pierre Poliyev. Poilievre, who has held a double-digit lead in polls for more than two years.

Trudeau has put his country in danger, which means Canadians are in no mood to celebrate his achievements as prime minister. But he did do something.

He enjoyed a long honeymoon, briefly becoming the darling of the global media and winning support for reducing child poverty, raising taxes on the wealthy and cutting taxes on the middle class. He legalized marijuana, imposed a carbon tax to reduce emissions and worked to improve the lives of Canada's Indigenous people, whose harsh living conditions have been a source of national shame.

Trudeau successfully managed Donald J. Trump's first term as president, carefully negotiating a trade deal similar to the one Trump inherited and helping the country weather the COVID-19 pandemic. ) pandemic, putting money in people’s pockets so they can continue lockdowns until the worst happens. Passed.

But if Trudeau handles crises reasonably well, he also regularly creates them. He broke moral rules by taking an ill-conceived vacation on the Aga Khan's private island; he went on a disastrous trip to India that was as much a royal tour; he was outed in blackface more times than he could There is more to say; he lost two ministers and several ministers. Top aides are embroiled in a scandal involving attempts to evade prosecution of corrupt engineering firm SNC Lavalin.

However, it’s the post-pandemic cost-of-living crisis that’s got him in trouble. Like Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak, Emmanuel Macron and almost every other sitting president in the West, Trudeau's poll numbers are falling along with people's household budgets.

The economy is growing more slowly than the United States, and his mismanagement of immigration has made it worse. Canada has long prided itself on its careful and successful integration of new immigrants, with Trudeau's father Pierre making Canada the first country to introduce official multiculturalism. But in an effort to reenergize the economy after the pandemic, Trudeau accidentally opened the door too wide, letting in record numbers of temporary foreign workers and international students, exacerbating what was already one of the world's worst housing crises. one.

His doom became clear in June when he lost a byelection in the usually safe Toronto neighborhood, and became even more apparent in September when he lost again in Montreal. Liberal MPs called on him to resign. He ignored their advice, shuffled his cabinet, tried a holiday sales tax break and considered sending $250 checks to all working Canadians, but nothing he did could change the numbers.

And then it all came to a head in December. After Trump threatened to impose devastating 25% tariffs on all Canadian imports, Trudeau flew to Mar-a-Lago, hoping his charm would win the day. Trump responded by repeatedly bullying him and threatening to annex Canada. With little domestic support, Trudeau was unable to find a way to respond effectively.

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Canadians have had enough of him, and he doesn't get the message. There is growing dissatisfaction with him among former ministers who believe his situation is dire. The country is me. One person told me that Trudeau “has now reached a point where he actually believes that what he's doing is good for the country, regardless of anything else, and I think that's very scary and problematic.”

Eventually, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who had saved the day in trade talks with Trump years ago, forced the issue. She resigned on December 16 amid disagreements over how to handle the incoming Trump administration, triggering a legitimacy crisis for Trudeau.

For years, Trudeau has been telling anyone who would listen that he must stay and fight the next election against Poliyev, whose right-wing policies and harsh attacks are outside the tradition of Canadian politics.

Trudeau despises Poliyev and sees him as a threat to the Canada his father founded. He wanted to fight him. He is a warrior. The 6-foot-2 Trudeau, who first won the Liberal leadership in 2013, proved his toughness in a charity boxing match and unexpectedly won 3-1.

“I'm a fighter,” he said Monday. “Every bone in my body always told me to fight because I care about Canadians so much.”

But Trudeau had to admit that it was time to admit defeat. “It's clear to me that because of the internal struggles I'm not going to be the person to carry Liberal Party standards into the next election,” he said.

That's an understatement. On Wednesday, his MPs asked him to quit. The polls have been so bad for so long that the Liberals need a new leader. Canadians needed someone to manage their relationship with the United States, which suddenly looked more difficult than at any time since the War of 1812.

But voters are clear they want others to do the same.