Trudeau and his Liberals have charted an arc that has seen them go from indomitable to endangered.
Even as they lost support in recent years, Liberal lawmakers had kept their angst about Trudeau private, in part because he rescued the party from the political wilderness after its worst result in a federal election in 2011 and many owe their careers to him.
But now, with the Liberals more than 20 points behind the Conservatives ahead of an election due in October, Trudeau is set to leave the party at the end of his nearly decade-long tenure as Prime Minister as he found it. : on the way to a potentially historic defeat.
Trudeau’s rise to power
Trudeau’s rise was charmed. She was in the spotlight and on magazine covers since she was born. During his father’s 1972 federal election campaign, a journalist joked that “baby Justin could become the best activist” in the family.
After Trudeau delivered a eulogy at his father’s funeral 28 years later – “I love you, Dad,” he said in French, before laying his head on the flag-draped coffin – observers speculated more seriously about his future. potential in politics.
He was elected to Parliament in 2008 and became leader of the Liberal Party in 2013. The party, which had dominated politics here after the Second World War, had been condemned to its deathbed. Trudeau’s Liberals began the 2015 federal election campaign in third place.
Trudeau sought to present himself as a brave underdog. His rivals dismissed him as a pretender who would exceed expectations in a leaders’ debate simply by showing up “with his pants on.” The attack ads branded him “just not ready.”
But Trudeau catapulted to power on his own wave of “Trudeaumania,” delivering a majority government with promises of “merry roads” and “real change.” Looking like a matinee idol, the heir to a political dynasty was something of a celebrity, besieged by selfies at home and abroad.
His first cabinet featured the first Muslim minister, the first indigenous justice minister, and an equal number of men and women for the first time in Canadian history: “Because it’s 2015,” he explained, in comments that went viral.
Trudeau tried to present himself as a foil to rising right-wing populist leaders in the West, once welcoming Syrian refugees at a Toronto airport and handing them winter coats. In 2017, rolling stone magazine
put him on the cover and asked, “Why can’t he be our president?”
Cracks in Trudeau’s brand
It didn’t take long for ethical failures and controversies to erode Trudeau’s image. Critics accused him of being a Prime Minister of selfies and sanctimony, not substance, and accused him of arrogance and hypocrisy.
He promised to act on climate change, but bought an oil pipeline. He promised to adhere to “the highest ethical standards,” but an ethics watchdog twice determined he had violated conflict-of-interest laws. He said Canada was “back” on the world stage, but allies said it was not doing everything it could.
In 2019, he and his top advisers were accused of improperly pressuring Jody Wilson-Raybould, the country’s first indigenous female prosecutor, to reach an out-of-court settlement with a Quebec-based engineering company facing corruption charges. and degrade her when she resisted.
His opponents called him a false feminist. Maclean’s magazine called him “The Imposter.”
Then photos and movies emerged showing Trudeau in black and brownface when he was younger. He apologized repeatedly.
The scandals left Trudeau down, but not out. He won re-election in 2019 and 2021, with a minority.
Internal and external disasters
The Trudeau government legalized recreational hashish, imposed a carbon price, created a national $10-a-day child care program, reduced child poverty, and advanced reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
He received praise for guiding Canada through the painful renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement during the first Trump administration. After Trump hurled personal insults at Trudeau, even the Liberal leader’s rivals rushed to his side.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the Trudeau government doled out billions in aid. For months, he held a daily news conference outside his residence in Ottawa where, like many Canadians, he was quarantining and working from home.
But his government faced another crisis in 2022, when thousands of protesters used vans and large trucks to block Ottawa and several border crossings to protest against his government and vaccination mandates, which were mostly imposed by the provinces.
Trudeau invoked emergency powers never before used to clear the so-called “Freedom Convoy.” Most Canadians supported the measure and opposed weeks-long lockdowns, but the Federal Court of Canada ruled last year that the use of those powers was unreasonable.
A public inquiry disagreed and deemed the invocation of the Emergencies Act justified. But he said Trudeau’s dismissal of protesters as a “marginal minority” energized them, “hardening their resolve and further embittering them toward government authorities.”
The resignation of a loyal ally
Freeland’s resignation accelerated a decline that had already been brewing for a long time.
The Liberals lost several special elections last year in what had long been safe seats. Trudeau backtracked on parts of his signature domestic policies: the carbon tax and a plan to dramatically increase immigration. None of the attempts to revert the slide worked. After almost a decade in office, many Canadians had grown tired of him.
Then came Freeland’s resignation letter on December 16, signed “with gratitude” but issued hours before she was due to present a fiscal and economic update to Parliament.
The resignation of one of his most loyal allies took Trudeau by surprise. He canceled end-of-year interviews. Opposition parties said they would vote to topple his government in a vote of no confidence when Parliament returned from recess, leading to new elections.
The number of liberal legislators publicly calling for his resignation grew day by day.
