The rise and fall of Justin Trudeau as Canadian prime minister resigns

The leader was once a poster boy for liberalism but has now resigned after nearly 10 years in office

After nearly 10 years at the country’s helm, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has resigned as leader of the ruling Liberal Party.

Trudeau’s latest crisis has been sparked by the sudden resignation of his finance minister Chrystia Freeland, amid a dispute over how best to handle U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s threatened trade tariffs.

At a press conference on Monday, Trudeau cited “internal battles” within the Liberal Party that meant he “cannot be the best option” in the next election.

Speaking outside his residence at Rideau Cottage, Trudeau said he had taken time over the holidays to “reflect” with his family. “Throughout the course of my career, any success I have personally achieved has been because of their support and with their encouragement,” Trudeau said.

“So last night over dinner, I told my kids about the decision that I’m sharing with you today. I intend to resign as party leader as prime minister after the party selects its next leader through a robust, nationwide, competitive process.”

Once the poster-boy for liberal politics, his popularity has waned and his approval rating has dipped below 30 percent several times this year.

So what went wrong?

Trudeau cited ‘internal battles’ within the Liberal Party that meant he ‘cannot be the best option’ in the next election (AP)

Rapid rise of a bright young thing

After starting his working life as a secondary school teacher, Trudeau took on several educational roles in charities and for the Liberal Party before he became leader of Canada’s centre-left Liberal Party in 2013. In a federal election two years later led the party in a dramatic victory over the incumbent Conservative Party, cinching a parliamentary majority.

Just 43 at the time, Trudeau became the second-youngest prime minister in Canadian history when he took office in 2015.

The son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, Trudeau was touted as “the new young face of Canadian politics” in a profile that year by Vogue, while other news outlets labelled the new Prime Minister as “extremely hot.”

Some of his government’s major early policies included passing laws to legalize voluntary assisted dying in 2016, legalizing recreational cannabis in 2018 and negotiating the Canada-United States-Mexico trade agreement in 2018. Trudeau also apologised to Indigenous Canadians for the country’s history of abuse at residential schools, and welcomed thousands of refugees.

Blackface scandal

Photos of Mr Trudeau in blackface damaged his reputation (Screenshot)

With approval ratings as high as 63 percent, his image took a hit after a blackface scandal in 2019. Videos and images resurfaced of Trudeau from the early 1990s and in 2001 dressed up in black or brownface, doing significant damage to his reputation as a liberal and progressive politician.

Photos emerged of the then-29-year old dressed as Aladdin in brownface makeup for an Arabian Nights party, and the prime minister admitted to dressing up in blackface while performing the Jamaican folk song “Day-O” in high school. He also said he could not rule out more similar incidents, as he had not remembered events from some of the uncovered images.

Minority government and COVID

The prime minister’s handling of the pandemic was also criticised by some (REUTERS)

Trudeau led the Liberal Party to a narrow election win in 2019, pushing his administration into minority government.

Less than two years later he held a snap election during a fourth wave of the COVID pandemic, betting his handling of the pandemic and high vaccination rates would deliver a stronger mandate in an election two years ahead of schedule, but he again failed to secure a parliamentary majority.

Canada’s voluntary assisted dying laws which are some of the most permissive euthanasia laws in the world started coming under more intense pressure from 2022 with advocates saying the system needed further scrutiny, as they argued a significant number of people were being euthanised when instead their pain could be alleviated with better government assistance.  

Trudeau has become deeply unpopular in the last few years thanks to booming immigration, soaring housing prices and inflation. More than 70 percent of polled Canadians think the country is “broken” under his leadership.

In October this year, Trudeau announced Canada would reduce permanent migration by 21 per cent in 2025 — from 500,00 migrants to 395,000 — admitting the government “didn’t get the balance quite right” with its earlier target.

Trump tariff woes

The row over the threat of Trump’s tariffs contributed to Trudeau’s resignation (AP)

Trump was quick to announce plans to slap a 25 percent tariff on goods from Canada when he won his second term in the White House in November. The president-elect wants the threat of tariffs — which make imported products more expensive for people in the US — as a way of pressuring Canada over immigration.

At starkly opposite ends of the political spectrum, Trump and Trudeau have never seen eye-to-eye. The billionaire mockingly referred to Trudeau as ”governor Justin Trudeau of the great state of Canada” following a recent dinner meeting at the president-elect’s estate Mar-a-Lago.

On December 16, Canada’s deputy prime minister and minister of finance Chrystia Freeland resigned over the issue just hours before she was set to release the country’s latest economic plan, questioning Trudeau’s ability to deal with the incoming Trump administration.

Trudeau, called it one of the Liberal Party’s “toughest days,” which ultimately led to his resignation.

At Monday’s press conference, Trudeau was asked for his side of the story over the altercation with Freeland.

Trudeau praised her as an “incredible political partner” of almost a decade, but expressed disappointment in her resignation.

“Chrystia has been by my side for close to 10 years now. She has been an incredible political partner through just about everything we have done as a government and as a party over the past decade,” Trudeau said.

But he added: “I had really hoped that she would agree to continue as my deputy prime minister and take on one of the most important files that not just this government, this country is facing, but she chose otherwise in regards to what actually happened.”

Split with wife of nearly 2 decades

Trudeau and his ex-wife Sophie Grégoire announced they were splitting up in August 2023 after nearly two decades of marriage.

They wed in 2005 and have three children together — Xavier, Ella-Grace, and Hadrien. Trudeau wrote at the time: “Sophie and I would like to share the fact that after many meaningful and difficult conversation, we have made the decision to separate.”

Earlier this year Grégoire, a former entertainment journalist, spoke out about the “hurt” their separation has caused.

Justin Trudeau, his wife Sophie Grégoire, son Xavier and daughter Ella-Grace in 2013 after he was named the new leader of the Liberal Party (REUTERS)

“It hurts deeply, because in a way we have these two words in our language. You know, marriage is ‘success.’ Separation and divorce is ‘failure,’” she told the podcast Next Question With Katie Couric.

“But life happens in between. And we dramatize our relationships because we are insecure, we are afraid to be abandoned, we are afraid to be alone as human beings. It is not in our nature to be alone and just living alone.”

Comments Grégoire made before the split on Meghan Markle’s Spotify podcast Archetypes resurfaced after the announcement, where she talked about a longing to breakaway from the traditional role of motherhood in the family.

“Women across this planet are still the nucleus of the family, they still carry most of the load for housework, contributing to the family’s well-being and most decisions concerning the kids,” she said. “But I think we’re all that lioness, we all have that inside of us, and we all long to be free in who we are.”