Justin Trudeau announcing his plan to resign, January 6, 2025/CPAC

By Geoff Norquay

January 10, 2025

During his resignation announcement on January 6th, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “It has become obvious to me, with the internal battles, that I cannot be the one to carry the Liberal standard into the next election.”

That he was arguably the last Canadian to come to this realization is a tribute to the narcissism and lack of personal awareness that afflicts political leaders under the influence of that potent combination of power and time. The “internal battles” that he referred to consisted of an out-and-out revolt of his own caucus, to which he was forced to yield.

By delaying his resignation until it became both inevitable and overdue, Trudeau has bequeathed an “entanglement of crises” — per the definition of polycrisis — for himself, his party, his successor, and the country. According to Canada338, the last nine years of Liberal government have set the table in the coming election for the Conservatives to take between 208 and 255 seats (an astounding number), for the Bloc Québécois to become the Official Opposition and for the Liberals to return to the House with between 35 and 54 seats.

Trudeau’s resignation leaves his party with limited time to organize and conduct this leadership race, which will quickly become a contest over who’s best to save the furniture and survive the next eight years eating rubber chicken in church basements. That new leader also faces the daunting prospect of having a little over two weeks after the leadership votes are counted on March 9 to put a new face on the party and government before being plunged into an election. Finally, the leadership contest is sure to involve the loss of ministerial knowledge and experience in critical Canada-U.S. files at the very moment we need their expertise to deal with the incoming Trump administration.

The country is facing, for the second time in less than a decade, the Trump threat of a tariff trade war that, if not defused, could crush Canada’s economy and cost this country countless jobs. The December 16 Fall Economic Statement included a $1.3 billion package to respond to the tariff threat by shoring up the border, but the status of that initiative is in serious doubt now that the House has been prorogued.

Sensing the PM’s weakness at a moment of maximum risk and uncertainty in Canada-U.S. relations, the provincial premiers have self-mobilized to become personally involved in the bilateral relationship. Now that Trudeau has rendered himself a lame duck, the coordination of their efforts is all the more challenging.

Meanwhile, Trump’s efforts to destabilize the world continue. After an amusing few weeks of lunatic musings over Panama and Greenland, it all turned serious this week when the incoming President said he would be willing to use “economic force” to convince Canada to agree to a political union with the United States. And all of this is before we face Trump’s looming assault on Canada over our pathetic military contribution to NATO: prepare for this country to be knocked silly when he reveals what he’s going to do to us until we pay up.

It is difficult to think of a worse time for this country’s leader and government to be weakened and in crisis. How much easier a Liberal leadership contest would have been a year or even six months ago.

Trudeau’s resignation leaves his party with limited time to organize and conduct this leadership race, which will quickly become a contest over who’s best to save the furniture and survive the next eight years eating rubber chicken in church basements.

This week’s events also raise questions about the impacts on the opposition parties. To state the obvious, Trudeau’s resignation and the decision to prorogue create certainty and immediacy as to the timing of the election. Barring a stunning reversal in our political narrative trajectory, the government will be defeated soon after the return of Parliament at the end of March, so all parties are now deeply into election planning, lining up campaign buses and filling in their dance cards of riding nominations.

When Jagmeet Singh ended his party’s Supply and Confidence Agreement with the Liberals last September, he said his objective in the coming election was to supplant the Liberals as the real progressive alternative to the Conservatives. The last four months have moved him closer to his objective, with the Liberals now polling at 20% and the NDP just one point behind. The NDP can now prioritize the 50 to 60 seats where they want to run head-to-head with the Liberals and knock them into fourth place.

For Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives, the challenges have this week become more complex. They have ridden the country’s anger with Justin Trudeau to unparalleled polling heights, but he will shortly be gone. While he will take some of the animus with him, they have also built a comprehensive policy case against the government that will serve them well in the coming election. The public attention on the leadership race may give the new Liberal leader a slight bump in public opinion, but I am betting it will be minimal.

More important for the Conservatives is the fact that their status as an alternative government is now much more real. Through interviews and announcements, Pierre Poilievre has been ramping up insights into his goals and strategies and his take on national issues such as housing over the fall, and this must continue. Poilievre still has some distance to go in transitioning from full-on attack dog to showing Canadians the persuasive and empathetic skills he’ll need in mobilizing support for where he wants to lead the country.

The departure of Trudeau and the impending Trump presidency present another set of challenges for Poilievre and the Conservatives. Say what you want about Trudeau, he and Chrystia Freeland had a pretty good record in defending Canada’s economic interests and safeguarding our trade relationship with the United States during the first Trump presidency. They negotiated hard and smart, and the result was a robust Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) that defended our economy and preserved our trade access to the U.S. marketplace.

So, what must a Poilievre government do in handling the critical 2026 renegotiation of CUSMA once in office? Exactly what the Trudeau government did:

• Learn the Canada-U.S. trade files better than the other side.
• Be prepared to respond proportionately to Trump’s negotiating threats and tariffs.
• Recruit a blue-ribbon, pan-partisan team of outside advisors such as former Conservative cabinet ministers James Moore, Lisa Raitt and John Baird, Liberal former ambassador to the US David MacNaughton, former Quebec Premier Jean Charest and former NDP Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, to be a sounding board on strategy.
• Listen to and take the advice of their public service advisors.
• Know the governors and key legislators in the states where our trade links are strongest in the U.S., court them and make them our allies.
• Rehabilitate Team Canada and mobilize the premiers to help in the U.S. outreach.
• Negotiate for Canada as if your political life depends on it. Because it does.

Geoff Norquay is a principal with Earnscliffe Strategies in Ottawa. He was a senior social policy adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office from 1984 to 1988 and director of communications to Stephen Harper when he was leader of the Official Opposition.