Trudeau’s Resignation: A Delay Of The Inevitable?

Justin Trudeau has been the prime minister of Canada for a little under a decade, having won parliamentary majorities three times in 2015, 2019, and 2021. The name Trudeau has been synonymous with Canadian political leadership for decades, as Pierre Trudeau, Justin’s father, also served as Prime Minister from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. 

Indeed, schools, mountains, and even airports bear the Trudeau name. Trudeau has become the face of the Laurentian Elite, the upper crust of Canadian society concentrated around the Saint Lawrence River.

On Monday of this week, Justin Trudeau ended his premiership, announcing his imminent resignation and the temporary suspension of Parliament until March when the Liberal Party elects a new leader.

The country’s political system now hangs in limbo until the Liberal Party can select a replacement for Trudeau before the October 2025 general election. While the Liberals scramble to put a fresh face in their leadership position, Canada’s Conservative Party observes their dismay with glee.

Internal Battles and Strategic Timing

The Trudeau government has weathered many storms of controversy before, from scandalous college-era photos of the prime minister in blackface to questionable vacations at resorts owned by donors to charities paying family members of Trudeau’s millions of dollars. However, criticism usually came from Trudeau’s detractors and political adversaries, not from within the Liberal Party, as is happening now.

Prime Minister Trudeau cites these “internal battles” as the primary reason for his resignation “…it has become clear to me that if I am having to fight internal battles I cannot be the best option in that election.” These battles between Trudeau and his fellow Liberal Members of Parliament (MPs) began to spill into a public spectacle following the resignation of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland last month. 

“He’s delusional if he thinks we can continue like this,” said Liberal MP Wayne Long. This sentiment is echoed across Canada’s Liberal strongholds, such as Long’s home province of New Brunswick or British Columbia. In fact, Long estimates that as many as fifty of the 153 Liberal MPs wanted Trudeau to resign immediately in late December 2024.

Though the Liberal Party is caught in a sticky situation with less than a year before elections, Trudeau’s decision to temporarily suspend parliament until March 24 will not only allow the party to collect its bearings and select a replacement prime minister but also keep Trudeau from receiving a vote of no confidence. Such a vote, which would be likely to pass at this point, would force Trudeau into an emergency election face-off and a near-certain defeat.

Resignation was the only way the Liberals had a fighting chance against the Conservative Party, a sentiment echoed by what would have been Trudeau’s Conservative opponent: party leader Pierre Poilievre.

The Conservative Party’s Golden Boy

The Liberal Party would not have forced Trudeau out of the premiership if the threat of competition was not unprecedented. Indeed, the leader of the Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre, has established a strong media presence as a no-nonsense alternative to the “Trudeau circus.” 

He was first elected as a Conservative MP in 2004 but attracted national attention in early 2022 for his support for “The Freedom Convoy,” a band of truckers that protested the Canadian government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Poilievre claimed that the Convoy Protests were a problem created by Prime Minister Trudeau and his fellow MPs to take advantage of the pandemonium that COVID-19 created to divide the population. 

Following Trudeau’s announcement, Poilievre released a statement on X claiming “[Liberal MPs] only objection is that [Trudeau] is no longer popular enough to keep them in power. They want to protect their pensions and paycheck by sweeping their hated leader under the rug months before an election.”

Just before Trudeau’s resignation, Poilievre’s popularity among Canadians was already leading by 29 percent. After the announcement, 40 percent of Canadians selected him as their preferred candidate for Prime Minister before the election campaign started. 

Nothing is Promised

However, time and politics are fickle, and the first month of the year is not even halfway over. The Conservative Party is likely to win based on their current momentum, but they would be wise not to count their chickens before hatching. 

After all, with Donald Trump reclaiming the White House as America’s second non-consecutive president, 2025 is set to be anything but predictable.

Lake Dodson is an Assistant Editor for the National Interest. His interests are Korean-American relations, cybersecurity policy, and nuclear energy/weapons policy. He is currently studying the Korean language, has completed courses on North-South Korean Relations, and has conducted various experiments on an AGN-201K Nuclear Reactor at the prestigious Kyung-hee University in Suwon, South Korea. His specific interests are effective nuclear energy policy, cyber-security, and the economy and politics of East Asia. He holds a BA from the University of Mississippi. 

Image Credit: Belish / Shutterstock.