Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has done a reasonably good job of tempering his image to that of a hard-line right-winger, reducing any chance Trudeau had of capturing enough of the center he needed.
My best guess is that, faced with this imminent defeat, Trudeau believes that leaving now will isolate him and make it more likely that he can return to the front lines of Canadian politics later, after a period of time in the wilderness.
Is such a return possible?
Charging
While in the United States figuratively dead presidents rarely come back to life (Grover Cleveland and Trump are the only ones to return after a re-election loss), in Canada there is a slightly greater tradition of political resurrection.
This dates back to the country’s first prime minister, John A. MacDonald, who resigned in 1873 amid scandal and was re-elected five years later. William Mackenzie King served three non-consecutive terms as prime minister in the first half of the 20th century. And Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, returned after losing the 1979 election to serve a fourth and final term in 1980.
But I feel like with Justin Trudeau it’s different. At this point, his parliamentary career goes beyond rehabilitation. He is deeply unpopular and has angered many of his loyal lieutenants; The resignation of his former ally and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland in December increased pressure on Trudeau to resign.
And while inflation – a scourge for rulers left, right and center around the world – undoubtedly played a role in Trudeau’s decline in popularity, other factors also played a role. Canadians generally feel that, given the cards he was dealt, Trudeau still played a bad hand. Under Trudeau, immigration to Canada increased enormously, and many blame this for the housing affordability crisis.
More generally, it appears that Trudeau, despite having a relatively young political age of 53, is out of step with politics at this very moment. Trudeau, like his father before him, is closely associated with identity politics, focusing on the perceived needs of certain groups over others.
And while the merits of identity politics can be argued, what is certainly true is that it is not particularly in style anywhere in the world right now. Indeed, center-right populists like Trump have been able to make great political capital by presenting their opponents as identity politicians.
How did Trump’s election victory affect Trudeau’s prospects?
Former Deputy Prime Minister Freeland resigned in part over discontent with the way Trudeau had responded to Trump’s proposed tariffs on Canadian goods. And that discontent with the way Trudeau was dealing with the incoming Trump administration extends to many Canadians, regardless of their political leanings.
Trudeau and then-President Donald Trump in 2017. Credit: AP
The Canadian economy is not in good shape and a 25 per cent tariff – as Trump envisioned – would be disastrous. Canadians are looking for someone who can negotiate with Trump from a position of strength, and that doesn’t appear to be Trudeau.
Indeed, faced with being trolled and humiliated by Trump (for example, by being called “governor” instead of the leader of a nation), Trudeau has faced criticism for his weak response. It symbolizes a growing sense in Canada that policymakers in Washington view the country as weak.
While Trudeau reportedly laughed off a suggestion at Mar-a-Lago that Canada become the “51st state,” at home the comment was seen as a test: Would Trudeau defend Canada or not?
In this sense, Trump’s election represented a challenge for Trudeau, but also an opportunity to confront Washington, something that would have won him the favor of anti-American Canadian nationalists. Instead, he is perceived to have cowered before Trump, further damaging his reputation at home.
Charging
What will be Trudeau’s legacy regarding US-Canada relations?
I think he got caught up in a dynamic that has seen a growing perception in the United States – as espoused by the incoming president – that Canada is taking military advantage of its southern neighbor. President Joe Biden is more politically aligned with Trudeau, but certainly during Trump’s first term, Washington viewed the Canadian prime minister as one of the NATO leaders who was not paying his fair share for the military alliance.
Partly as a result, Canada under Trudeau has fallen down the list of reliable allies, especially among Republicans. If Americans were asked to name Washington’s most reliable ally, the United Kingdom or Israel would probably beat Canada. Trump’s statements since his re-election suggest he views Canada less as an ally and more as irrelevant. The comments about the Greenland purchase point to Trump’s desire to ignore other nations’ desire to be more active in the Arctic, something that should have set off alarm bells in Canada.
So, in summary, you can characterize Trudeau’s relationship with the United States as good under Biden, bad under the first Trump administration, and – potentially – irrelevant under Trump II.
What will happen next in Canadian politics?
I see one of two things happening.
The most likely scenario is that the Conservatives win an election that could take place any time between March and October. Current polls suggest they are on track to win more than 50 percent of the vote. If that happens, we can expect a Canadian government much more aligned with that of the next US administration, with a more centralist foreign policy and border reforms that will tighten immigration controls.
And the timing may provide an opportunity for Trudeau’s successor to make a fresh start with Trump and forge a stronger relationship or, alternatively, reaffirm some degree of Canadian resistance to Trump.
The second scenario is what I call “the French weirdness.” Much like the last French election, in which the two main anti-right parties reached a non-compete agreement to thwart the far-right National Rally, we could see the Liberal Party and the socialist New Democratic Party try something comparable in an attempt to mitigate The conservatives win. But that’s a long shot and still won’t increase Trudeau’s chances of returning.
As for the post-Trudeau Liberal Party, it is difficult to see who will want to lead it to almost certain electoral defeat. But I think the most likely outcome will be for the party to try to adopt a more centralist and economically conservative agenda. It would really mark the end of the Trudeau period.
Patrick James, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
This article is republished from The conversation under an Artistic Commons license. Read the original article here.
