Justin Trudeau has earned his impending resignation

The most widely predicted turn of events in current Canadian politics has come true. As of Jan. 6, Justin Trudeau has tendered his resignation as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and prime minister of the country. 

However, he is not stepping down from either role right away until the party elects a new leader after a leadership convention. In the meantime, Parliament has been prorogued — an official shut down without dissolution — until March 24. 

It is more than likely that once Parliament reconvenes, the Conservatives, NDP, and Bloc Québécois will defeat the government in a confidence vote, thus triggering an election and bringing Canadians to the polls earlier than anticipated this year. 

From the moment that the NDP ended its supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberals, I had suggested that Trudeau’s premiership was coming to an end. Back then, it was not a sure thing, but the tides have turned since September, and chances of the government staying in power dissipated with each day. 

Dwindling confidence from fellow Liberals and Canadians, combined with Chrystia Freeland’s shock resignation from the Trudeau cabinet, have all but washed this government out. There was no avoiding it, and to deny the inevitable was an exercise in foolishness, inattentiveness, and misplaced partisan optimism.

At the time of publication, those who have launched their bid for leadership include ex-governor of the Banks of Canada and England Mark Carney, the aforementioned Freeland, and House Leader Karina Gould, among a wave of other potential candidates. 

Interestingly, both Carney and Freeland have signalled that they would scrap the carbon tax if selected, a policy which Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre has been championing to slash since his successful campaign. Consider it an indictment of Trudeau’s legacy.

Ultimately, that is what has brought this Trudeau era to an end — Justin’s legacy. As a prime minister, he was a scandal-ridden one, a managerial one, and he brought about no real change as a leader — a true upholder of the status quo. 

When the world began to erupt, Trudeau sought to keep on keeping on when that really was not the way to go. Even when his own party began to erupt, he waited as long as possible before giving in to the expected outcome. 

Trudeau was, and is, the platonic ideal of a liberal. No matter how “communistic” his detractors try to make him out to be, the inconvenient truth is that he was only as red as his party always has been — unconvincingly cosmetic. His refusal to fundamentally alter anything about the Canadian state and system first cost him a majority government in 2019 and now the office.

As for the prorogation of Parliament, it is just borrowed time for the government. Unlike Stephen Harper’s 2008 and 2009 prorogations — first done to save the then-Conservative minority government from a Liberal–NDP–Bloc Québécois alliance, and then a second time to escape questions about detainee torture during the War in Afghanistan — this situation is somewhat more justifiable in that it is to give the Liberal Party time to get its affairs in order and choose a new leader. 

Trudeau is also dodging a confidence vote, but the indisputable certainty of a new Liberal leader, and that the next federal government will likely be Conservative, makes raising a fuss unneeded. 

Once March 24 arrives, watch an immediate dissolution as the aforementioned confidence vote and snap election take place. Whoever wins the leadership contest will also be winning a chance to lose the election. They will be the placeholder that separates the second prime minister Trudeau from the second prime minister Poilievre.