Party over Country

Trudeau sort of resigns and leaves Canada in an impossible position

News often comes at you in two tiers. The headline, generating a certain emotional reaction, followed by a sort of sub-title which is part of the news but not everyone seems to register and grasp that second piece. And so it was with Justin Trudeau’s resignation on Monday. No, he did not resign as prime minister of Canada as all of the headlines around the world would suggest, but as leader of the country’s governing Liberal Party. Not everyone took the time to take in the fact that it will now have to take some time to find a new leader in order to prepare itself for an inevitable federal election later in the year. In order to create some room for his party to do this and get organized, Trudeau prorogued - ie. suspended - parliament to the end of March. In the meantime he will just carry on as prime minister.

It means that a motion of ‘no confidence’ is likely required to trigger an election and this will now not be tabled until probably sometime early April so an election can be held in June. And that is if everything falls into the place quickly, a few hiccups and the election could well take place after the summer. That is some eight months from now. In the meantime Canada is governed by a party with a lame duck leader, but even after Trudeau’s replacement in say April, the Liberal Party will carry on for a few more months. A big deal? The answer is yes, it is an act of constitutional vandalism of the highest order as the government lacks a parliamentary majority for support and thus essentially the legitimacy to continue governing. Democratically elected leaders have a lot of tools at their disposal to manipulate the system and Trudeau in seeking what is best for his party, knows exactly how to use these. But it could not come at a worse possible time. Trump is threatening Canada with crippling tariffs, the domestic economy is struggling while a host of international crises demands serious attention. Yet there is now no functioning government to manage these. Canada is exposed.

And all of this is coming from the man who promised Canadians transparency and that the election in 2015 in which he won a majority would be the last first-past-the-post election. All in the name of democracy and political renewal and to suggest a clear break with Stephen Harper, the conservative leader who prorogued parliament for his own benefits, a move then criticized by Trudeau. Promises of these reforms were all cheap campaign stunts that Canada’s Liberals probably never seriously considered as a viable option in the first place. But hey, it got a lot of votes.

It should be interesting to note that Trudeau’s majority in 2015 was also a fragile one. It did not take long for scandals to rock the party and the electorate did not return the favour in subsequent elections in 2019 and 2021 where Trudeau had to work with a minority government. But the pandemic helped bridge this situation as did the endless federal money printing machine which was fully operational from the very first day of his government. Not once in the almost ten years they were in power did the Liberals produce a balanced budget. Red ink all over the place, but it kept the masses relatively quiet and Trudeau in place, also helped by a conservative opposition that failed to galvanize the vote with a compelling leader. Who remembers Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole?

It is not hard to compile a list of excessive debt, sacking competent ministers, inflation, affordability issues, failing foreign policy, rising crime and of course questionable immigration policies. Many are writing columns this week listing it all, Bari Weiss has a pretty good summary here. But what broke the camel’s back was Trudeau’s stance during the pandemic. In an interview in French for a Quebec news outlet in the late summer of 2021 he pointed to those critical of vaccinations as extremists, misogynists and racists. Whatever his intention was, it was a costly mistake as it clearly smeared a large part of the population which all of a sudden stood divided in a time when it would have need to be unified. Many progressives and lifelong Liberals suddenly wondered how out of touch Trudeau really was and checked out. On its own it could have been a fixable political gaffe, but in the emotional environment that the pandemic was and on top of the long list of political blunders and increasingly difficult economy it heralded the inevitable end of the golden boy from Montreal.

And Canada consequently got a taste of deep discord which seeped down to the provincial and local levels. And protests, lots of them. Wherever Trudeau turned up things got violent and unsafe fast so much that the prime minister’s office could longer publish events or even an itinerary. And in the winter of 2022 the entire world was glued to news screens to see how the Trucker’s Convoy protest would challenge Trudeau and his government. So threatened they felt by the resulting chaos in downtown Ottawa that the government declared a national state of emergency which included - among other things - shutting down the bank accounts of a number of protestors and their contributors. It was an incredibly dark and authoritarian move, signed off by the finance minister and deputy prime minister, the person who for nine years had uncritically carried water for Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland. The same Freeland who last month could no longer take madness emanating from the prime minister’s office and left it all behind, triggering the crisis that brought Trudeau down only weeks later.

Down, but not out. As he demonstrated throughout his tenure, from electoral reform to managing the pandemic, there were always two things that pre-empted the national interest. The man himself and his party. And now we are left with the party, still in charge at a time when global conflict, tariffs and inflation can deal another blow to a Canada that is far more fragile and divided than before Trudeau came to power nine years ago. A new election may bring hope, but until then uncertainty and indecision will be the name of the game. That’s not good for Canada and not good for the world.