Justin Trudeau didn’t decide to resign this past week, sources say. The decision was made weeks ago, in plain view.
And few noticed.
It happened on Dec. 18. On that date, Trudeau’s PMO abruptly cancelled interviews with multiple media outlets: Global News, CBC, CTV, Radio-Canada, TVA Nouvelles, along with what was to be a joint interview with CityNews and OMNI Television. The move was unprecedented.
Few Canadians understood the significance of that decision. But senior Liberals knew it almost certainly meant the government end of Trudeau’s reign had arrived.
One very senior Liberal, who has years of experience with different prime ministers and their offices, said that is the moment when Trudeau had truly decided to go. “No leader has cancelled year-end interviews, ever,” said the Liberal. “They’re a tradition. They’re important, because lots of Canadians watch them. And Justin cancelled.”
Trudeau’s behaviour in the days that followed did nothing to alter that decision, sources said. Trudeau made some canned remarks at the Liberal Christmas party on the Hill, and then just a few words to the media after he shuffled his cabinet for the last time. He then got on a Challenger jet and flew to British Columbia to ski.
Few, if any, heard from Trudeau during the crucial days when he needed to be working the phones to save his leadership. Trudeau mainly communicated only with the small circle who remain loyal to him, and with family members. Some urged him to stay and fight.
But Trudeau had no fight left in him. Everywhere he looked, sources said, his prospects were bad and getting worse. President-elect Donald Trump was mocking him on the world stage, calling him the governor of the 51st state. Caucus members – including the crucial Atlantic, Quebec and Ontario caucuses — started to publicly demand that he step aside. And an Angus Reid Institute poll was issued, suggesting that the Liberals had fallen to only 16% support nationally.
That’s not all: Liberal leadership campaigns started organizing, more or less openly, and talking to the media – anonymously, of course – about their prospects in the post-Trudeau era. Among them was Dominic LeBlanc, who Trudeau considers one of his closest friends, and Chrystia Freeland, the former deputy prime minister who had dramatically quit Trudeau’s cabinet two days before he cancelled his year-end interviews.
“He’s human, you know,” said another Liberal insider. “He was down. He asked his circle (of advisors) if there was any way to hold on and avoid a full caucus revolt. They came up with nothing.”
“It had nothing to do with (Conservative Leader Pierre) Poilievre,” said one Liberal. “He still thinks that Poilievre is a pipsqueak.”
But the parliamentary holiday recess was like bankruptcy, another Liberal said. The process of unravelling is very slow, and then it suddenly reaches its grim conclusion very, very fast.
“He knew it was all over,” said the senior Liberal. “His kids were saying to him, ‘Dad, it’s time to go home.’”
Don’t now expect an avalanche of patronage appointments, the sources agree. That was the main factor that defeated former Liberal leader John Turner in 1984. Liberals have been mad enough at Trudeau as it is, they say, and he doesn’t want to make them any angrier.
As for the future, Trudeau is not worried. His family’s wealth have made him a multimillionaire, and he will be paid handsomely on the book and speech circuit. He has no shortage of job prospects, either. Some suggest a soft landing at the United Nations, but other sources doubt that.
Whatever happens, Justin Trudeau has finally taken what his father memorably called a “walk in the snow.” He loved the job of prime minister, and he felt he was doing right by Canadians.
But Canadians clearly felt otherwise. And in mid-December, when no one was really looking, Justin Trudeau finally took note, and made his decision.