Challenged by Trump, Trudeau rallies Canada as his final act

OTTAWA, Ontario — It was not even three months ago when it seemed like Canadians couldn’t wait for an end to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s nearly decade-long stint as their leader. On Jan. 6, he announced his intention to step down, with polls showing most Canadians deeply unhappy with the state of their country.

But as Trudeau, 53, officially resigned Friday, his fortunes have taken a remarkable turn, thanks to a prolonged campaign of aggression against Canada by President Donald Trump.

Through tariffs that could lead to economic devastation and repeated verbal attacks on Canada’s sovereignty, Trump has ignited a wave of patriotism, and Trudeau’s defiance and oratorical skills have helped rally the nation.

“Canadians are reasonable and we are polite, but we will not back down from a fight, not when our country and the well-being of everyone in it is at stake,” he said after Trump briefly imposed 25% tariffs. “What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us.”

Addressing the president informally as “Donald,” Trudeau continued, “Even though you’re a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do.”

At such a fraught time, he now hands the reins over to Mark Carney, a former leader of two major central banks, who was elected by members of Trudeau’s Liberal Party on Sunday to succeed the departing prime minister. Carney was formally sworn in as Canada’s next leader Friday.

Until Trump launched his broadsides against Canada, which have provoked intense feelings of betrayal, anger and resentment, there was a growing expectation that Trudeau might leave the Liberal Party the way he found it when be became its leader in 2013: a body possibly headed for extinction.

Polls had consistently showed the Liberals badly trailing the rival Conservative Party, with the gap reaching as high as double digits.

Trudeau’s decision to resign started to reverse the slide. But it was Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs against Canadian exports, his claims that Canada would be better off if it became the 51st state and his belittling references to Trudeau as “governor” that drastically changed the political landscape.

The Liberals have essentially erased the lead long enjoyed by Conservatives, and surveys show that Canadians say they believe Carney would be better able to stand up to Trump than the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre. To capitalize on that momentum, Carney is expected to soon call a general election that now promises to be more contested.

As Canada has confronted a bellicose Trump, Trudeau has leaned on the speaking skills he used to reassure the country during the COVID pandemic and that helped bring him to power.

His strength during a crisis is that “he suddenly comes on strong, finds his feet and is able to articulate a largely emotional kind of response rather than a technocratic response,” said Michael Atkinson, a professor emeritus of political studies at the University of Saskatchewan.

Still, on the domestic front, Trudeau leaves a deeply troubled country facing challenges that will be complicated and expensive to address, including soaring housing costs and the rising prices of groceries.

The picture for Trudeau was far rosier after he resurrected the Liberal Party and led it to a decisive victory in the October 2015 election. He made climate change, feminism, reconciliation with Indigenous people, immigration and child poverty top priorities. During the pandemic, he introduced programs for workers and businesses that lessened the damage to the economy.

But the mood toward Trudeau began shifting as he dealt with personal and political failings.

Revelations about his fondness for dressing up in blackface or brownface before entering politics undermined his support; he said he was “deeply sorry,” but many people scoffed at his claim that the practice had not been generally seen as racist 20 years earlier. Some of the more lavish vacations he took also drew criticism.

And Trudeau was widely seen as bullying a female member of his government, Jody Wilson-Raybould, an Indigenous lawyer who served as justice minister and attorney general. She refused to yield to Trudeau’s pressure to make a deal with a Montreal-based engineering company facing corruption charges; Trudeau said that he was acting to save jobs, fearing for the company’s ability to bid on international contracts if it had a criminal conviction.

Wilson-Raybould resigned from the Cabinet and then was expelled from the Liberal party.

But it was pocketbook issues that ultimately sent the popularity of Trudeau and the Liberals into a downward spiral, as his “sunny ways” approach to politics wore out its welcome.

Driven by the aftermath of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the cost of living soared in Canada. Inflation was a global problem — it climbed higher and remains higher in the United States and Europe — but Canadian voters, like those in other countries, have not been inclined to absolve their leaders of blame. In some major cities, a typical starter home now costs 1 million Canadian dollars, hindering economic mobility.

Poilievre seized on Trudeau’s vulnerability to pummel him relentlessly, often using simple, three-word slogans — like “Ax the tax,” a reference to a carbon tax enacted under Trudeau. Carney’s first act Friday afternoon was to sign an order immediately eliminating the widely unpopular tax.

Underscoring Trudeau’s fading appeal, the protest started by truckers that paralyzed downtown Ottawa, Ontario, for nearly a month in 2022 was for many of its participants as much about the prime minister as it was about pandemic restrictions.

The black flags that included a vulgarity before Trudeau’s name still fly, if often faded and tattered, in many rural areas.

Trudeau has not spoken publicly about what he will do next. But those who know him suggest a priority will be his family, following his separation from his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, last year.

Marc Miller, who had been the immigration minister under Trudeau and has been friends with him since he was 11 and the two were classmates in Montreal, predicted he would return to a private life centered on his three children.

“He probably wants to get some time to air his brain out,” Miller said. “That’s probably unsatisfying for anyone that is really eager to hear what his next steps are, but that is where the current state of his thinking is.”

For the past few days, however, Trudeau has been very clear about what is on his mind.

In a farewell speech to Liberals on Sunday, he reminded Canada that fights are sometimes necessary. Then he uttered two words that hockey-loving Canadians instantly understood and that have become a battle cry: “Elbows up.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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