Justin Trudeau announces resignation as Canadian Prime Minister
The move comes as US president-elect Donald Trump continued to troll Trudeau, calling him "governor" and referring to Canada as the "51st state"
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has resigned just hours before his north American nemesis, Donald Trump, is due to have his election win certified by Congress.
The move comes as the US president-elect continued to troll Trudeau, calling him "governor" and referring to Canada as the "51st state" in a succession of social media posts. Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose swinging 25 per cent tariffs on America's neighbours if its leaders did not stem what he called a flow of migrants and drugs into the United States.
Trudeau today suspended parliament for three months following an open revolt by his MPs over the soaring cost of food and the country's housing crisis. He will stay on as prime minister until a new leader of the Liberal Party is chosen.
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Trudeau's resignation also comes just weeks after his finance minister and key ally, Chrystia Freeland, quit over disagreements about how the Canadian government should respond to Trump's incoming administration's threat of sweeping tariffs.
Trudeau subsequently announced a major shake-up to his cabinet, changing a third of his team in a bid to settle the political turmoil. Before Christmas, he faced a mini-revolt by 24 MPs following the shock resignation of Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister, finance minister, and long-time ally of the prime minister.
Trudeau came to power in 2015 after 10 years of Conservative Party rule and had initially been hailed for returning the country to its liberal past. But the 53-year-old scion of one of Canada's most famous prime ministers became deeply unpopular with voters in recent years over a range of issues, including the soaring cost of food and housing and surging immigration.
The political upheaval comes at a difficult moment for Canada internationally. Canada is a major exporter of oil and natural gas to the U.S., which also relies on its northern neighbour for steel, aluminium and autos. Trudeau has kept publicly quiet in recent weeks, despite intensifying pressure for him to step down.
"His long silence following this political drama speaks volumes about the weakness of his current position," said Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal. Canada's former finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, announced her resignation from Trudeau's Cabinet on December 16, criticising some of Trudeau's economic priorities in the face of Trump's threats. The move, which came shortly after the housing minister quit, stunned the country and raised questions about how much longer the increasingly unpopular Trudeau could stay in his job.
Freeland and Trudeau had disagreed about two recently announced policies: a temporary sales tax holiday on goods ranging from children's clothes to beer, and plans to send every citizen a check for $250 Canadian ( approximately €168). Freeland, who was also deputy prime minister, said Canada could not afford "costly political gimmicks" in the face of the tariffs threat.
"Our country is facing a grave challenge," Freeland wrote in her resignation letter. "That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war."
Trudeau had been planning to run for a fourth term in next year's election, even in the face of rising discontent among Liberal Party members. The party recently suffered upsets in special elections in two districts in Toronto and Montreal that it has held for years. No Canadian prime minister in more than a century has won four straight terms.
And based on the latest polls, Trudeau's chances for success looked slim. In the latest poll by Nanos, the Liberals trail the Conservatives 47 per to 21 per cent. Today, Congress gathered amid a Washington DC-wide snow emergency declaration to certify President-elect Donald Trump's 2024 victory.
It will come exactly four years after he stirred up a mob that attacked the Capitol in a failed attempt to disrupt the certification of his 2020 election loss and keep him in power.
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