After nine years serving as prime minister, Justin Trudeau emerged Monday from Rideau Hall to let Canadians know that he would be proroguing Parliament until March 24, at which time he will resign and be replaced by a new Liberal leader. Trudeau was vaulted into power in 2015, campaigned on many promises, a good deal unfulfilled. Born into the fame and adoration of his père Trudeau’s legacy, he crafted an image of himself as a great and wonderful leader. Today, he crafted a new narrative of himself as a “fighter,” always “motivated by what is in the best interests of Canadians.” Except most Canadians have pulled back the curtain since 2015 and disagree. Yet, he chose to part leaving the impression that both his caucus and Canadians never truly deserved him.
In his address, the prime minister told us he had done much reflecting about his and his family’s future and any success he had achieved, which he attributed to their ongoing support. He did not, however, reflect on what may have caused his popularity to plummet in the first place, nor did he reassure Canadians that his party now knew what might be the reasons for their unpopularity, nor did he detail any plans to course-correct in the future.
The whole speech was a celebration of himself. He’s a “fighter,” he told us. It’s just too bad he has to fight all these internal battles with his own caucus. He told Canadians, “it has become clear to me that if I’m having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election,” suggesting there couldn’t be any actual substance to the complaints his caucus might have with his governance. Nah.
Those internal battles are the reason, he said, he is no longer the best option for Canadians. Internal battles, and the fact that, in his own words, “Parliament has been paralyzed for months after what has been the longest session of a minority Parliament in Canadian history.” In short, Canadians have not given his party a majority government.
These sad reasons — the opinions of his caucus and most Canadians — are why this proud “fighter” can no longer go on as our wonderful leader. Why can’t we just see what we’re doing to this poor man?
Now, there is no “manual of musts” for a speech on this type of occasion. However, given the Liberals current drop in popularity to 16 per cent, according an Angus Reid poll, one would think the leader of a country who took a party who won office in 2015 gradually down from 184 seats to 160 in 2021, and now projected to win possibly as few as six in 2025, would have the humility to admit he may not be so wonderful after all, that he had learned some lessons from nine years of governing and listening to Canadians, and was now ready to pass off government to a new leader with a new winning vision for his party.
Instead, Trudeau doled out the same old party verbiage that isn’t helping the polls, promises to strengthen and grow the middle class, advance reconciliation, fight climate change, and get our economy ready for the future. It was as if he was blissfully unaware that we’d heard this all before.
The reality, despite Trudeau’s words, is much different: the middle class is feeling the pinch after his nine years of his governance. The Liberals haven’t managed to lift water boil advisories on First Nations reserves, let alone reconcile with Indigenous peoples, whatever that might look like. There’s little evidence that the carbon tax reduces emissions, but it sure does line government coffers.
And, what kind of economy has our wonderful put-upon leader left Canadians with? Canada’s current debt is at an astronomical $1.2 trillion with each Canadian’s burden at $29,738, and our deficit is predicted to reach 61.9 billion this year. Economists agree that Canada is in a recession, not a “vibecession” of our own making, as suggested by one of Trudeau’s likely successors, Chrystia Freeland. And Trudeau has not taken responsibility for any of it.
And it doesn’t look like much will change, even with a new leader. In front of Rideau Hall, Trudeau insisted that “a new prime minister and leader of the Liberal party will carry its values and ideals into that next election.”
What values and ideals? These are not Paul Martin or Jean Chrétien Liberals. This is not a centrist Liberal party anymore. It has gladly shifted far to the left, behaving like the NDP, and has top cabinet ministers in foreign affairs dispensing of moral clarity, appeasing their demographics and putting winning their seat above Canada’s relationship with democratic Israel. This is a Liberal party that doesn’t seem to hold any values or ideals other than winning at all costs.
We will have to wait until the new leader takes over in March to see if the party will continue on this course of what appears to be principleless leadership, but Trudeau’s words suggest that he himself hasn’t learned any lessons over the past nine years in respect to his government’s effects on the daily lives of Canadians, and that the only reflecting he’s done has been on himself.
Did anyone ever really expect anything different from a leader who’s no doubt been told and made to feel he was wonderful his whole life, without ever having to prove it? When the Liberal party chose him as their figurehead — and figure hair — to lead their decimated party, some members must have expected as much. Now that he will be gone in March, I wonder if we will finally hear from them and learn what they say needs to change within the party.
National Post