Justin Trudeau lays down his arms

After several weeks of conjecture about his future, Justin Trudeau ended the suspense on Monday by announcing to Canadians that he will leave his functions as Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada as soon as his party has chosen the person who will will succeed.

I intend to resign as Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and as Prime Minister once the party has chosen its next leader through a rigorous and competitive national process.

Here [dimanche] evening, I asked the party president to begin the necessary stepshe took care to add.

The Prime Minister also asked the Governor General of Canada, Mary Simons, to prorogue Parliament until March 24. This means that the activities of the House of Commons will be adjourned until this date.

Despite all efforts to get through this, Parliament has been paralyzed for months, following what was the longest session of a minority Parliament in our country’s history. That’s why this morning I met with the Governor General to let her know that we need a new session of Parliament. She granted my requestexplained Justin Trudeau.

A strategic decision that will allow the Liberals to have a little more time to find a new leader.

During the holidays, I also had time to reflect and have long conversations with my family about our future. […] Last night, at dinner, I shared with my children the decision that I share with all of you todaysaid the Prime Minister with emotion.

As you know, I am a fighter. Deep down, I have always fought because I care deeply about Canadians.

Justin Trudeau has not officially addressed the media since mid-December, since the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

At rock bottom in the polls, he had to navigate an increasingly hostile sea as several MPs left his party in recent months and more than twenty others publicly asked him to resign.

An extraordinary meeting of the Liberal caucus is to take place on Wednesday in Ottawa and it is not certain that Mr. Trudeau’s leadership would have survived as the discontent is strong against him within the political party. For a significant part of his deputies, the possibility of him being at the head of PLC in the next elections was simply excluded.

It has become clear to me that if I have to focus on internal battles, I cannot be the best option in these elections.

In the House, the opposition also awaited the firm return of the Trudeau government. If not for the prorogation of Parliament, the Conservative Party planned to table a motion of censure against the Trudeau government on January 7 during a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee.

Until very recently, the Liberals could count on the support of the New Democrats to stay in power, but on December 20, the leader of the NPDJagmeet Singh, called for the resignation of Justin Trudeau and declared that he was ready to bring down the government as soon as the holidays returned by uniting the voice of his party with those of the Bloc Québécois and the Conservative Party.

In accordance with the Liberal Party Constitution, I will convene a meeting of the members of the National Council to be held this week to begin the pan-Canadian democratic process of selecting a new leader of the party.

Prime Minister Trudeau has been in turmoil since the surprise resignation of Chrystia Freeland, the day he tabled his economic update. The one who headed Finance for the Trudeau government for more than four years confirmed at the same time the deep disagreements that had arisen between her and her boss.

I thank Justin Trudeau for the years he spent serving Canada and Canadians. I wish him and his family the best.

Mr. Trudeau had just asked him to give up his place in Finance to former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, on whom several Liberals are banking to lead the country in the near future.

For their part, Mr. Carney and Ms. Freeland are working to gauge their respective support within the party. According to a recent Angus Reid poll, Chrystia Freeland would be the candidate who would attract the most support (21%) for the PLCassuming that elections take place. Less known, Mark Carney received 14% of members’ voting intentions at the time of the online survey conducted from December 27 to 31 among 2,406 respondents.

Thank you, Mr Prime Minister […] for your leadership, for your many contributions to Canada and for the sacrifices you and your family have made for public service. We wish you the best for your next chapters.

What does Justin Trudeau leave for Canadians?

To a journalist who asked him what the most important accomplishment of his government had been since 2015, the Prime Minister replied:

In 2015, we were elected on a promise to work for the middle class.

We reduced poverty, we helped families enormously. We have created an economy that works for many more people by preparing for a more digital future where climate change will have a greater impact. We have done a lot of work with the Canadianswelcomed Justin Trudeau.

In addition to legalizing cannabis, the Liberals implemented a national $10 daycare system, a public dental insurance system and a national drug insurance plan.

But Justin Trudeau does not leave without some regrets, including that of not having respected his promise to reform the voting system.

I still think that if our electoral system had been changed so that people could put a first, second, third choice on the ballot [de vote]the parties would have spent more time looking at the points they had in common to be voters’ second or third choice [sic] rather than seeing the polarization we hadhe explained.

But I could not unilaterally change our voting method in this country.

Remember that, during his election in 2015, Justin Trudeau promised that this would be the last election to be held in a first-past-the-post system in Canada. However, his government abandoned the idea of ​​reforming the voting system in February 2017, failing to obtain the necessary consensus to make such a change. An about-face which provoked the anger of many citizens who voted for the PLC in the hope of seeing this change come to fruition.

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