Canadians want Justin Trudeau to resign

The latest poll shows 72 per cent of Canadians wannt Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to resign, two years ­before an election is due.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing the wrath of voters. Picture: AFP

Almost 40 years ago, the Canadian prime minister was facing intense pressure to stand down. Miles behind his Conservative ­opponent in the polls, bitterly unpopular, Pierre Trudeau announced he would not run again after going for a “walk in the snow” to consider his future.

Ottawa is freezing at this time of year, but so far there is little snow on the ground for Justin Trudeau to crunch through.

Most Canadians want him to follow in his father’s footsteps and resign as Prime Minister. Struggling to fulfil domestic promises, increasingly marginalised on the international stage, once the golden boy of not just Canadian but also of global politics, the 51-year-old is losing his Midas touch.

The latest poll last week showed that 72 per cent of Canadians, including a third of voters for his centre-left Liberal Party, want Trudeau to go now, two years ­before he has to ask the country for a fourth term in office.

“Governments reach their best-before date around the eight-year mark,” said strategist Geoff Norquay. “That’s partly what’s happening here – the rose is losing its bloom. The Liberals came into power in 2015. Most Canadians are ready for a change.”

Canada is in the grip of a cost-of-living crisis. “We’re seeing levels of economic pessimism at a 12-year high,” said Shachi Kurl, president of polling group Angus Reid Institute.

Justin Trudeau at last month’s the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum in San Francisco. Picture: AFP

“The challenge is, this government really has no policy answer.”

Outside Canada’s striking parliament building, voters are un­decided on whether Trudeau should go now or stick around – but seem more certain on his performance.

“Ask the people who queue up for food banks whether Trudeau is doing a good job,” said Shaun, who did not want to give his surname.

“Trudeau was once the shiny thing in politics. He will need to come up with something shiny again if he is to convince people he’s the right man for the job.”

Kurl says the Ipsos poll last week is not an outlier and that Trudeau faces an uphill battle if he is to stand a chance of winning the next federal election, to be held by October 2025 at the latest.

“It does seem daunting,” she said. “However, it’s a little early to start performing the last political rites.”

Trudeau’s arrival on the international scene in 2015 was akin to that of Tony Blair in 1997. Everyone wanted to be photographed with him, and he was treated like something of a rock star. But in ­recent years, the gloss has come off. In 2019, he weathered a row about wearing blackface as a young man after photos resurfaced ahead of the election. And in August, he and wife Sophie announced a separation after 18 years of marriage.

Trudeau’s relationship with foreign leaders has suffered. There was virtually no agreement with the US while Donald Trump was in the White House, while more recently there have been spectacular fallings out with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian prime Minister Narendra Modi, the latter over allegations that Delhi had ordered the murder of a Sikh separatist and Canadian citizen earlier this year.

Justin Trudeau and wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau announced their separation in August. Picture: Getty Images

It is domestic failings that have led to Trudeau barely clinging on to his job, however. In 2018, he was found to have improperly influenced his then attorney-general in a criminal case involving one of Canada’s biggest construction companies, and two years later the Prime Minister was cleared over allegations that a charity that had paid Trudeau family members hundreds of thousands of dollars had been chosen to administer government funds for a student program.

While the scandals alone did not dislodge Trudeau from 24 Sussex Drive, the prime minister’s Ottawa home, the performance of his government eventually might.

Kurl points out that many of Trudeau’s cabinet seem out of touch – a point highlighted when Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tried to show that she was in the same boat as voters. “I look carefully at my credit card bill and last Sunday said to the kids, ‘You’re older now … let’s cut that Disney+ subscription’,” she told Global News last year, to much public scorn.

The economic situation has forced Trudeau to dilute a carbon tax plan and Canada is now likely to miss its 2030 emission-­reduction target.

If some of the wounds being felt by Trudeau’s government are self-inflicted, others are coming from the strongest opposition he has faced since coming to power. Last October Pierre Poilievre, 44, was elected leader of the Conservatives, and while even supporters say he is still rough around the edges, they believe he can guide the right back to power.

“He is a young, brash and a ­superb communicator,” said Norquay. “Trudeau [is] progressive, activist and woke – all things that are kind of tiring for Canadians.”

A survey last month was the first to put Poilievre ahead of ­Trudeau, elevating a Conservative to the preferred pick for prime minister for the first time in almost a decade.

After eight years and three elections that have returned him to office, Trudeau is adamant that he will fight the next election, and there are still those that think he can stage a comeback, helped by increasingly casting Poilievre as Trump-lite – a task made easier last week when the Conservatives voted against a bill to create a free-trade agreement with Ukraine.

In central Ottawa on Thursday, the Prime Minister still had support.

Jonathan Chirwa is a software developer from Malawi who has lived in Canada for a decade. “I think Trudeau represents well what it means to be a Canadian,” he said. “I’ll almost certainly vote for him next time.

“The economy is not great and people are struggling, but he still represents what Canada is all about.”

The Sunday Times