Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said he plans to resign as leader of his Liberal Party – and effectively, as prime minister – amid growing pressure.
The embattled prime minister suspended Parliament until late March and said he would stay on until the party could appoint his replacement.
Trudeau took office in 2015 on a series of lofty promises, from tackling climate change to bolstering social programmes and helping the Canadian middle class – and today’s announcement is a dramatic fall from those early days of his tenure.
The prime minister has faced months of pressure from within his party, where a growing chorus of Liberal MPs had urged him to step down before the next election. He also had to contend with widespread public anger over his handling of issues ranging from grocery costs to housing.
Most recently, a threat from Canada’s biggest trading partner, the United States, to levy 25-percent import tariffs fuelled a new volley of criticism — and prompted one of Trudeau’s top political allies, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, to resign.
Jeffrey Dvorkin, a senior fellow at the University of Toronto, said the Liberals will likely pay close attention to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’s recent election loss in the US as they select their new leader.
“I think one of the things that is pretty clear to all politicians is that the way Kamala Harris was elevated to be the candidate of the Democratic Party in the United States worked against her because people didn’t give people enough time to get to know her,” Dvorkin told Al Jazeera.
Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee after US President Joe Biden unexpectedly dropped out of the race, circumventing the usual primary process.
“It’s the same thing now” in Canada, said Dvorkin.
“The backbenchers who are most interested [in running for the Liberal leadership will need some time to get their ideas out there and to say how they might differ from a Trudeau administration. It doesn’t matter who leads the Liberals,’ says NDP leader Singh.
Jagmeet Singh, head of the left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP), has responded to Trudeau’s resignation.
“Justin Trudeau has let you down, over and over,” Singh said in a statement posted on social media, pointing to housing and grocery costs.
“It doesn’t matter who leads the Liberals. They don’t deserve another chance,” he said before turning his attention to the Conservatives.
“Conservatives are jumping at the opportunity to take from you and give more to CEOs. You will pay the price of Poilievre’s cuts,” he said.
