Justin Trudeau resigns before his own party could throw him out
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday morning that he is stepping down as leader of the leftist Liberal Party of Canada ahead of its national caucus meeting on Wednesday. The announcement comes after years of scandals and after several weeks of his own party members calling for him to resign.
"I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide, competitive process," Trudeau told reporters outside his taxpayer-funded home at Rideau Cottage, doing his apparent best to smile.
"If I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option," added the prime minister.
Trudeau told reporters that he asked Governor General Mary Simon to prorogue Parliament until March 24. State media indicated Simon granted the request.
Three sources, one of whom recently spoke to Trudeau, told the Globe and Mail on Sunday that the leftist leader felt compelled to make a voluntary exit before parliamentarians in his own party could force him out.
According to the Angus Reid Institute, Trudeau's disapproval rating was 74% and his approval rating was 22% as of Dec. 24. Upon assuming office in November 2015, the Liberal Party leader's approval rating was north of 60% and his disapproval rating was under 30%.
Trudeau's nine years in office have been marked by multiple blackface incidents and other personal scandals; tax hikes; an unprecedented influx of immigrants; a spike in illegal immigration; rising crime; an enormous federal deficit; unanswered church burnings; a housing crisis; coercive medicine; and the rise of state-facilitated suicide as a leading cause of death nationally.
While the Liberal Party wants to ditch Trudeau before the imminent federal election, it owns all of his failures — including his unlawful decision to use martial law in 2022 to crush the peaceful trucker protests — and it appears that Canadians are well aware.
A Dec. 27 Nanos Research poll indicated that a plurality of Canadians (40%) would prefer to see Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre as prime minister. Only 17.4% of respondents indicated they would like to see Trudeau carry on in the role. The Conservative Party leads with 47%. Even if the Liberal Party and socialist New Democratic Party resumed their coalition, they still would be a combined nine percentage points behind.
Nik Nanos, chief data scientist at the polling outfit, noted in a statement, "Conservative support hits a new long-term high with a 26-point advantage over the Liberals. This has occurred alongside calls for Trudeau to step down. Worry about jobs/the economy has also hit a new four-year high."
Sources told the Mail that Trudeau could have left immediately and had an interim leader, such as George Chahal of Alberta, take his place. Evidently, he wants to hold on to power a while longer.
Blaze News previously noted that among the people apparently jockeying for Trudeau's job are the leftist's foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, who effectively auditioned last month for his job in the pages of the New York Times; Trudeau's deputy and former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, who recently abandoned her post after overseeing the growth of the federal deficit in 2023-24 to $61.9 billion; and former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, who has been putting in calls with Liberal parliamentarians about running in a potential leadership race.
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