Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Says He Is Resigning

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes an announcement outside Rideau Cottage in Ottawa on Jan.6, 2025. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced he will resign as prime minister and Liberal leader after a replacement is chosen. He also asked Gov. Gen. Mary Simon to prorogue Parliament until March 24, a request Simon granted.

“Last night over dinner, I told my kids about the decision that I’m sharing with you today. I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust, nationwide, competitive process. Last night, I asked the president of the Liberal Party to begin that process,” Trudeau said on Jan. 6.

Trudeau made the announcement after weeks of turmoil within the Liberal caucus, with many MPs publicly calling for his resignation amid declining poll numbers.

Trudeau said he wanted to stay on for the next election, which will be held this year, to compete against Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives who have been surging in the polls, but said the internal conflict in the Liberal Party has made it impossible for him to continue as leader.

“I am not someone who backs away from a fight, particularly when a fight is as important as this one is, but I have always been driven by my love for Canada,” he said.

“Canadians deserve a real choice in the next election, and 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.”

In reviewing his tenure as prime minister since 2015, Trudeau mentioned the economy and trade with the United States, governing the country through the pandemic, working on indigenous reconciliation, support for Ukraine, and climate-change policies.

“Since 2015 I’ve fought for this country, for you, to strengthen and grow the middle class. ... We rallied to support each other through the pandemic, to advance reconciliation, to defend free trade on this continent, to stand strong with Ukraine and our democracy, and to fight climate change and get our economy ready for the future,” he said.

He said one regret he has is not changing the electoral system in Canada, “so that people could simply choose a second choice or a third choice on the same ballot.” The Liberals had made an election campaign promise in 2015 to reform the electoral system, with Trudeau saying he wanted to change Canada’s first-past-the-post system.

Trudeau said on Jan. 6 that he will stay a “part of a progressive movement that will seek out a better future and for Canadians,” and that the next leader chosen by the party will carry “the progressive Liberal standard” into the next election.

Proroguing Parliament

The House of Commons in a file photo. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

When asked why he isn’t calling an election immediately as requested by opposition parties, Trudeau said he decided to ask the governor general to prorogue Parliament until March 24 because he wanted to both reset the Parliament after it had been “paralyzed for months,” and to also reduce “polarization” by his resignation announcement.

The Conservatives led a filibuster of House of Commons proceedings during the fall sitting over the government not fully complying with a House order to hand over all federal green fund scandal documents to the RCMP. The Liberals cite privacy concerns for their refusal to hand over the fully unredacted documents.

“The reset that we have is actually two parts. One is the prorogation, but the other part is recognizing that removing me from the equation as the leader who will fight the next election for the Liberal Party should also decrease the level of polarization that we’re seeing right now,” Trudeau said.

The Conservatives have been critical of Trudeau proroguing the Parliament, saying it’s meant to give the Liberals a chance to organize for a leadership race instead of having an earlier election triggered by a vote of non-confidence after Parliament resumes on Jan. 27.

“A lame duck, Liberal insider selected Prime Minister would be tasked with addressing multiple crises of unaffordability, crime, and tariffs,” Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner said in an online post.

The next federal election has to take place on or before Oct. 20.

Low Polling, Turmoil

Calls for Trudeau’s resignation had escalated after the high-profile resignation of Chrystia Freeland as deputy prime minister and minister of finance on Dec. 16. Freeland resigned after Trudeau had informed her that she would be shuffled to another cabinet position. In her resignation letter, she raised concerns about government expenditures at a time of financial challenges faced by the country.

The public calls from within caucus for Trudeau’s ouster first began to surface over the summer after the Liberals lost the longtime stronghold of Toronto-St.Paul’s to the Conservatives in a byelection, as support in the polls for the Liberals had been waning for months.

The byelection defeats in previously Liberal-held seats were repeated in Montreal’s LaSalle-Émard-Verdun riding in September, where the Bloc Québécois won, and in B.C.’s Cloverdale-Langley City byelection in December, where the Conservatives won in a landslide.

The defeats came as the Conservatives have been holding a double-digit advantage over the Liberals in the polls in the past year. A Jan. 3 survey by Angus Reid showed that support for the Liberals with Trudeau as leader has plunged to 13 percent.

Trudeau had said he’d take time over the holidays to reflect and decide on his future.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then-Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland arrive to deliver the federal budget in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on March 28, 2023. Justin Tang/The Canadian Press

Leadership Contenders

Among leadership contenders considered in the Angus Reid survey, support for the Liberals rose to 21 percent if Freeland were to become the leader.

Others whose names have been mentioned as possible leadership contenders include Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, Transportation Minister Anita Anand, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne, former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney, and former B.C. Premier Christy Clark.

The developments come as incoming U.S. President Donald Trump has said he’ll impose 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports unless the country takes action to secure the border to stop the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants to the United States.

Meanwhile, following Freeland’s resignation from cabinet, the NDP has joined the other opposition parties in saying it intends to bring down the minority Liberal government in a vote of non-confidence.

The NDP previously had a supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberals, under which it supported the Liberals on key votes in exchange for certain legislation such as national dental care and pharmacare programs. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh broke the agreement in September, but the party continued to vote with the Liberals on confidence motions.

Prime Minister Since 2015

After winning the general elections Canadian Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau speaks at a victory rally in Ottawa on Oct. 20, 2015. Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Trudeau, the 53-year-old scion of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, studied literature at McGill University, graduating in 1994, and education at the University of British Columbia, graduating in 1998.

He worked as a teacher for several years before following his father’s footsteps to enter politics, becoming a Liberal MP in 2008 and representing the riding of Papineau in Montreal.

Trudeau became Liberal leader in 2013, and went on to revive the party from third place to forming government in late 2015, winning a majority against the Conservative government of Stephen Harper.

His majority government was reduced to a minority in the 2019 election, and remained more or less the same after the pandemic election of 2021.

With nine years at the helm, Trudeau is one of Canada’s longer-serving prime ministers in terms of time in office, ranking seventh so far among the 23 who have held office since 1867.