Justin Trudeau announced his resignation on Monday as both prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Trudeau said he will remain as caretaker PM until the Liberal Party selects its new leader.
“I am a fighter,” Trudeau said in his resignation press conference. “The fact is, despite best efforts to work through it, Parliament has been paralyzed for months.”
Trudeau said that if he is “having to fight internal battles,” he would not be the “best option” for the upcoming Canadian election, where Conservatives and their leader Pierre Poilievre are currently favored to win.
Trudeau said he has asked Canadian Governor General Mary Simon to “prorogue” Parliament until March 24. Prorogation means terminating the current session and effectively suspending Parliament until the designated date. Unlike dissolution of Parliament, when the prorogation period ends, the same representatives will reconvene for a new session.
“Parliament has been paralyzed for months after what has been the longest session of a minority parliament in Canadian history,” Trudeau said.
Trudeau has been leader of the Liberal Party since 2013 and became prime minister in 2015. He been under growing pressure to resign after a string of Liberal election defeats, party scandals, and plummeting approval ratings.
While the prime minister’s downfall arguably began with the surprise victory of Conservative Don Stewart in June for a seat in Toronto-St.Paul’s that had been held by Liberals since the 1980s, pressure for his resignation mounted after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president in November.
Many members of Trudeau’s own party agreed with the opposition that Trudeau was unsuited to the task of leading Canada in tough negotiations against Trump, who has threatened to increase tariffs against Canadian goods unless its border with America is brought under control.
The final, fatal blow to Trudeau’s administration came when his deputy prime minister and finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, resigned on December 16. Freeland wrote a scathing letter of resignation that blasted Trudeau for irresponsible spending on “costly political gimmicks” in the face of Trump’s tariff threats.
Trudeau’s administration thus became the second Western government to collapse as a result of Trump’s election, the first being the leftist “Traffic Light Coalition” government in Germany. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said within hours of the U.S. election results that Trump’s return was a factor in splintering Germany’s ruling coalition.
This is a breaking news story and has been updated since its original publication.
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