On 6th January 2025, the highly controversial Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau announced his intent to resign from the Prime Minister’s post and also from the leadership of his ruling Liberal Party. Trudeau, who started his career as a nightclub bouncer, reached his zenith nine years ago when he won the leadership of the Liberal Party in the parliament and was appointed the Prime Minister of Canada. This was his consecutive third term in office. However, during this term he earned a very bad name within and outside his country and was instrumental in destroying diplomatic ties with India besides bringing disrepute to his own country in the field of economy and social harmony. His popularity in Canada has come down drastically and all surveys showed declining results for his party under his leadership. It is an established fact that he and his party were going to lose elections that are due late this year regardless of leadership.
Trudeau this Monday announced his resignation as Liberal Party leader in the wake of rising discontent over his leadership. Trudeau came to power in 2015 after 10 years of Conservative Party rule. “I intend to resign as party leader and as Prime Minister after the party selects its next leader through a robust, nationwide competitive process. This country deserves a real choice in the next election, and it has become clear to me that if I’m having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election,” tearful Trudeau said at a press conference and admitted candidly that he stood no chance to lead his party to victory in the ensuing elections. Trudeau, 53, won re-election twice thus becoming one of Canada’s longest-serving Prime Ministers. His popularity started going down two years ago amid public anger and anguish over high prices and a housing shortage, and his fortunes never recovered. The Liberal Party will now select its new leader through an internal election process, with the winner also assuming the role of Prime Minister. Until then, Trudeau will remain in office.
It was in the last month that the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland started criticizing Trudeau’s economic priorities. Trudeau and Freeland had seriously disagreed about two recently announced policies, one a temporary sales tax holiday on goods ranging from children’s clothes to beer and second the plans to send every citizen a cheque for $250 (Canadian). Freeland announced her resignation as the Finance Minister from the cabinet on December 16 last amid US President-elect threats to impose 25% tariffs on all Canadian goods if the government doesn’t stem what the Republicans term a flow of migrants and drugs in the US. Everybody knows that the US faces the biggest migraine of migrants and drugs from its two neighbours, Canada in the north and Mexico in the south, though the bigger one is from the south.
Following his recent win in the US elections, Donald Trump shared on social media his plans to impose a 25% tariff on Canadian goods, putting Trudeau in an awkward situation as he rushed to the US to repair his thorny ties with the US President-elect ahead of his oath-taking on the 20th January. During that discussion at Mar-a-Lago, Trudeau appealed to Trump not to implement the tariffs, claiming they would destroy Canada’s economy. In response, Donald Trump bluntly proposed that the northern neighbours become America’s 51st state. In the next week, Trump even insulted PM Trudeau by calling him Governor Trudeau. This was taken as a public humiliation by the citizens of Canada and held Trudeau responsible for the embarrassment. Trump intends to levy tariffs on Canada in an attempt to pressurize Ottawa to take stringent steps to secure the border and curb illegal immigration into the US. Trudeau’s decision followed weeks of scrutiny from his Liberal Party colleagues amidst a growing schism on how to approach ties with Trump in his second term having potential of serious strain in trade and diplomatic ties.
All three main opposition parties in Canada have declared their intention to bring down the Liberal Party in a no-confidence vote when Parliament reconvenes. With this unified stance, a spring election to choose a permanent replacement for Trudeau appears inevitable. The leader of opposition and Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, following the announcement of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation, criticized the move as a superficial gesture by the Liberal Party aimed at salvaging its electoral prospects. Poilievre argued that the resignation does little to address the systemic challenges and policy failures that marked Trudeau’s nine-year tenure. He has been a serious critic of Trudeau’s consistent policy failures as also his diplomatic failures all these years, especially the breakdown of relations with India. Trudeau’s announcement, the latest in a wave of the so-called liberal leaders worldwide to step down amid rising voter dissatisfaction, acknowledged the internal struggles within his party. “Canadians desperate to turn the page on this dark chapter in our history might be relieved today that Justin Trudeau is finally leaving,” Poilievre said in an interview, “Every Liberal MP in power today and every potential Liberal leadership contender fighting for the top job helped Justin Trudeau break the country over the last nine years.”
Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the New Democratic Party, once a key ally of Justin Trudeau with whom he had a chummy relationship, said that the Prime Minister has disappointed people and criticized him for handling issues like housing, groceries and healthcare. Jagmeet Singh is an open supporter of Khalistani elements in Canada and his support to the Trudeau government was instrumental in breaking down Canada’s diplomatic ties with India. The ties between the two nations touched historic lows last year when a large number of staff in the diplomatic missions in New Delhi and Ottawa were sent back to their respective countries consequent upon the diplomatic row over the allegations of killing of a Khalistani supporter, Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, Canada.
Trudeau made a great mess of things in relation to the killing of Nijjar whom he called a Canadian citizen and a victim of India’s ‘progrom’ against its known and unknown opponents living overseas. Nijjar was a classified Khalistani terrorist in the eyes of law in India who migrated to Canada illegally and whom India wanted Canada to hand over to law for trial. Trudeau was on a visit to India in 2023 in connection with the G20 Summit meeting in New Delhi. He created an unprecedented situation in New Delhi immediately after the Summit and virtually locked himself in a hotel room for two days. It was said that his aircraft had developed some snag and needed repairs. Once he reached Canada, he made a horrific statement on the floor of parliament in which he accused India of murder of Nijjar. He said that he had ‘credible evidence’ in this regard which as per him was based upon the intelligence input.
He couldn’t place any sort of documentary or other potential proof in relation to his allegations against India. Instead of taking up the issue at an appropriate political or diplomatic level, he continued to repeat his diatribe against the government of India publicly and even accused the High Commissioner of India in Canada of having links with the murder and called him a ‘person of interest’. He even tried his best to involve the ‘Five Eyes Countries’ in this regard and hoped the US would come to his help which it didn’t. Then he himself submitted before an independent commission in Canada that he had no documentary evidence to lay before the Commission in regard to his allegations against India. It brought a huge disregard to him in the eyes of the people in Canada and elsewhere. What could have been intelligently solved at a diplomatic level, Trudeau complicated things and damaged the relations between India and Canada.
Canada’s economy is heavily dependent upon export of its goods to the US. Simultaneously, a large number of students from India go to Canada for higher studies every year and bring millions of dollars to its economy. Trudeau’s statements, actions and policies didn’t only create a thorn in the relationship of Canada with India and US alone, he created a wedge between various sections of society living in Canada. His efforts in this regard drew extreme criticism from all meaningful voices of different communities living in India, US and Canada. His silence on attacks on temples, Hindus and Indian assets in Canada was taken seriously by people in India and Canada. He was in a way responsible for sowing discord among different communities living in Canada. He had started losing friendship with leaders at a global level which was indeed not in Canada’s interests. In fact he was snubbed a number of times publicly by the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Chinese President Xi Jinping.
With the imminent exit of Justin Trudeau in near future, both India and Canada should feel relieved. It has recreated the possibilities of renewal of ties between the two nations. Anti-India regimes in the world, particularly those with left-liberal leanings are coming to their end. Nationalism, economic handshake and bilateral relations between the nations seem to be the major guiding forces to lead political leaderships at a global level. India is surely in lead in the changed scenario and everyone is waiting for the 20th January 2025 when the new American President is expected to take oath. The new year 2025 is expected to bring positive changes globally.
