Justin Trudeau: The autumn of a liberal Today World News

Once a liberal icon who represented the values of the ‘cultural Left’, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, now in the last year of his third term, is mired in a crisis of unpopularity, dissension and defections from within his Liberal Party fold.

The embattled Mr. Trudeau has been in power for nearly a decade since November 2015, for three terms. Few Canadian Prime Ministers have survived to rule for four terms. But in both the 2019 and 2021 federal elections — the latter called in September 2021 after Mr. Trudeau advised the country’s Governor General to dissolve parliament — the Liberal Party was reduced to leading a minority government.

In March 2022, Mr. Trudeau was able to retain power after the Liberals and the social-democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) agreed to a confidence and supply agreement, entailing NDP support in parliament tied to the Liberals backing the NDP agenda on welfare and taxes.

In the years since, Mr Trudeau’s popularity has plateaued. Recent approval ratings show that he enjoys barely 26% support compared with the 63% he had in the early days of his first tenure. Liberal Party leaders within his caucus have called for his resignation and earlier this month, a key Minister and someone widely considered to be his successor, Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, resigned abruptly, calling Mr. Trudeau’s policies as “costly political gimmicks”.

Meanwhile, a resurgent Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre, has steadily upped its popularity due to negative perceptions in the electorate about Mr. Trudeau’s governance. And the social democrats have been miffed too because of ideological differences with the Liberal Party.

In September, the NDP had ended its 2022 agreement but Mr. Trudeau survived three no-confidence motions called by the Conservative Party since then, as the NDP and the federalist Bloc Quebocois have been reluctant to vote alongside the conservatives.

Elections are supposed to be held in October 2025 but there is an increasing likelihood that the Liberal Party will seek a leadership change before that to mitigate the loss of support due to Mr. Trudeau’s unpopularity. The opposition in Canada apart, Mr. Trudeau has had to chart unsteady waters in Canada’s external affairs as well. The re-election of Donald Trump as the U.S. President and his open hostility to Mr. Trudeau, besides threats of tariffs on Canadian goods, is a major irritant.

Ties with India

Canada’s relations with India also took a nose-dive over allegations by Mr. Trudeau that Indian intelligence agencies were linked to the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Khalistani separatist and Canadian citizen, even as the Indian government upped the ante over its concerns that Mr. Trudeau’s government was providing safe haven to Khalistani extremists. Mr. Trudeau was also confronted publicly by the Chinese President Xi Jinping for “leaking” discussions between the two sides on “Chinese interference” in Canada to the media.

How did things go so south for the “liberal darling” of the northern hemisphere?

Mr. Trudeau rode to power in Canada promising a liberal agenda and delivered on some issues that were dear to the “cultural Left”.

He acted on promises of instituting gender equality by appointing a Cabinet with 50% representation to women and appointing more women judges in Canada’s Supreme Court. Recreational marijuana’s sale and use was legalised in Canada in 2018. A carbon tax was introduced as Mr. Trudeau sought to implement climate-friendly policies — the Conservatives have vowed to remove this on coming to power. Child care agreements were implemented as was representation for and reconciliation with Indigenous people. The reforms on dental care, pharma care and a federal “anti-scab” (employers replacing striking workers) law were made possible due to the aforementioned support from the NDP.

But Mr. Trudeau’s image as a reformer reforms committed to liberalism had already been hurt because of a number of scandals. While he appointed an indigenous woman to the post of Justice Minister in Jody Wilson-Raybould in his first term, she resigned over alleged interference and threats from government officials to favour a firm embroiled in a corruption trial. In 2020, in his second term, Mr. Trudeau faced an ethics scandal involving a government contract for a charity that worked with his family members.

His current unpopularity is now tied to the problems related to the economy. Issues such as raging inflation, a housing crisis and opposition to immigration have led to a significant decline in opinion for Mr. Trudeau and the conservative party has benefited from this. With opinion polls pointing to a possible rout for the Liberal party if elections were held now, a number of his party colleagues have urged him to step down, none more prominent than Ms. Freeland. The NDP has also promised a no-confidence motion in the New Year and it remains to be seen if Mr. Trudeau can weather that storm as he has managed in his three terms.

His boyish looks and charm and the fact that he is the scion of the Trudeau family — father Pierre Trudeau served two terms (one abridged one) as Prime Minister in the late 1970s and early 1980s — helped him garner popular support when he embarked on its first term, calling himself a representative of the younger generation in Canada. Taking a leaf from the playbook of former U.S. President Barack Obama, Mr. Trudeau won a mandate at a time when liberalism was popular in the early 2010s in the Americas in particular.

Rise of populism

But with high inflation affecting people across Europe and North America and voters — particularly those from working class sections — turning toward right-wing populists who are avowedly opposed to free trade and the liberal international order, Mr. Trudeau finds himself as an anomaly. The phenomena of working class voters being wooed by the Right on issues such as immigration and “culture wars” is not unique to Canada as experiences of other Western democracies, including that of the U.S. shows.

Ms. Freeland characterised his efforts to win back voters such as a “two month sales holiday” and 250 Canadian dollars as rebate for workers as reckless policies but it also suggested a desperation by Mr. Trudeau to wean away detractors from working sections.

The manner he has attended festivals with Khalistani insignia and others glorifying extremists could also be seen as a way to pander to the influential Sikh community, but his rhetoric about Indian involvement in Nijjar’s murder reflects an intention to better his image as a “weak leader”.

With signs pointing to drastic Liberal losses, Mr. Trudeau could be persuaded to relinquish power to a colleague as elections beckon, akin to how Joe Biden withdrew from the Presidential race in the neighbouring country. But considering his record in his earlier tenure and how he addressed allegations against him, it is increasingly likely that he will try to portray himself as a defiant leader who will stay in power till the end of his term.

One way to do so would be to prorogue parliament and prevent any no-confidence motions till elections are scheduled in October. As things stand, no Liberal leader has the heft to close the gap between the Conservatives but Ms. Freeland’s resignation seems timed to push the party to find an alternative. Whether Mr. Trudeau will succeed in fending off this fresh challenge will be known quickly as 2025 beckons in Canada.