The Daily - The End of Justin Trudeau’s Canada

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

This week, Justin Trudeau said he would step down as prime minister of Canada — a stunning downfall for a man who was once seen as a global icon of progressive politics.Matina Stevis-Gridneff, the Canada bureau chief for The New York Times, explains the forces that led to Trudeau’s collapse, and discusses the populist leader who could replace him.Guest: Matina Stevis-Gridneff, the Canada bureau chief for The New York Times.Background reading: A timeline of Justin Trudeau’s rise and fall.Here are four possible contenders to succeed Mr. Trudeau.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

From the New York Times, I'm Natalie Ketroff, and this is The Daily. This week, Justin Trudeau said he'd step down as Prime Minister of Canada. That marked the stunning downfall of a man who was once seen as a global icon of progressive politics. Today, my colleague Matina Steves-Gridff, explains the forces that led to Trudeau's collapse. And she talks about the populist leader who could replace him just as Donald Trump returns to power. It's Wednesday, January 8.

Matina, for me, and I think for a lot of people, when we heard Justin Trudeau was stepping down, it felt like a pretty remarkable moment. Partially because he's been in power for so many years, almost a decade, and he'd really become something of a fixture in global politics, but also because of the way that he was doing it, the way he was residing, not finishing out his term, choosing to just kind of exit the political stage. You cover Canada. What did you make of that moment? I mean, I know what you mean, Natalie, but honestly, he resigned, but I really don't think it was much of a choice. Yes, he had been around for a really long time.

It's almost kind of hard to remember a time when he wasn't Canadian Prime Minister. But if you've been following Canadian politics, you would know this was a really long time coming and for many Canadians well overdue. He had been under tremendous pressure from within his party to step down, and the public had made it abundantly clear that they were no longer supporting him. His popularity was at historic lows, and eventually the growing calls from within his party for him to step down showed him the exit. Well, okay. So tell me, how did he get to that point where he really didn't have a choice but to do what he did?

I mean, broadly speaking, the arc of Justin Trudeau's narrative is one of rapid and spectacular rise and slow and steady decline. And really, that rise kind of almost started from his birth. He was born, well, his father was in his first term of being Prime Minister of Canada. He's late father Pierre Trudeau. And Justin Trudeau is born in the spotlight and raised in the trappings of Canadian political power. But when he decides himself as a young man

to enter politics, running for member of parliament in the late 2000s with the Liberal Party, his father's party, he's sort of seen as this wimp or kind of weak from a character perspective. So despite his background, he's definitely not automatically commanding the respect of the political establishment in Canada. Hmm. It is now time for your main event. Please welcome Justin Trudeau. And one of the first things I think he did to dispel that notion was that he literally participated in a charity boxing match against a very serious conservative politician who had a black belt in karate.

Trudeau walking in. He's got a determined look on his face. And of course, people anticipated Trudeau to get destroyed, but he wasn't. He actually hung in there. Today he becomes a man, Brian. Oh, he's just railing. And he won the match. I proved that a liberal can take a punch.

I proved that we're not people who can be counted out, even though we seem nicer and a little more touchy-feely and we believe in things and we believe in… I know it sounds really basic, but people started calling him a fighter after that. So it's fair to say this is actually good for his image. While it may seem kind of gimmicky, it worked. Oh, absolutely. And within a year, Trudeau becomes the leader of the Liberal Party. Now, to be clear, the Liberal Party was a disaster when Trudeau became its leader in 2013. And Justin Trudeau quickly resuscitated it, brought it back from the dead and by 2015 had done such a good job putting the party back together and bringing it back to strength that he sweeps into government and becomes prime minister. I got elected on a platform of openness, of transparency, of engagement, of listening

to Canadians, of trusting people with real answers to tough questions, a level of respect for citizens that for me is at the heart of what a 21st century democracy looks like. And he's obviously popular in Canada, he's just won this very important election. But boy is he popular globally. He just explodes on the global political scene like a rockstar. It's no secret that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is hot and smoldering. But would you be surprised to learn that when Justin was younger, he was even hotter and smoldier. Oww Canada!

The global press is fawning over him from the broadsheet Sirius Papers to the glossy women's magazines. Vogue declares him one of the unconventional haughties of the year. It's really a phenomenon. ["The New York Times"] And I think he was seen by a lot of people as a sort of successor to the Obama progressive dream.

Remember, this is the tail end of the second Obama presidency. And here's this younger guy in Canada who seems to stand for sort of the same principles, the same values and have that same sort of sunny hopeful outlook. Right. It really does take you back to this era where that brand of progressive politics was just in and Justin Trudeau is a global poster boy for those ideals. Absolutely. He declares himself a feminist. He also pursues policies that we identify with progressive politics, such as climate change related policies, reconciliation with Indigenous communities in Canada, and a very pro-refugee

stance in the middle of the Syrian civil war. Right. And then I remember Trump gets elected the next year, and Trudeau really kind of takes on this role as a counterweight to him and his approach to immigration writ large. Absolutely. The world projects on him expectations of being the antithesis of Trump, and Trudeau really leans into the idea that he's the opposite of Trump. In fact, he takes the opportunity to showcase that straight off the bat. Soon after Donald Trump is inaugurated, he announces a major policy known as the Muslim Ban.

And in response to that, Trudeau goes to what was then still known as Twitter and says, to those fleeing persecution, terror and war, Canadians will welcome you regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. Hashtag welcome to Canada. Is there a more anti-Trump message than that in that moment? I don't think so. I remember at the time for liberals in the United States, you know, he was this, you know, ideal leader. I mean, I remember there was like talk of how they were all going to move to Canada. Yeah, totally.

It was, it was a whole thing. And you know, he really relished that reputation and it had staying power on the global stage. But at home, his star started to dim around that time. Tell me about that. What happened? Well, there were a series of what we would call scandals. As I said, this was a personal family vacation where we visited someone who I have known pretty much all my life.

He accepted this luxurious holiday on a private island as a gift and many people saw it as deeply inappropriate and a conflict of interest. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he deeply regrets wearing blackface in a resurfaced photo. Photos of him from his student days wearing blackface emerged. This is something that I deeply, deeply regret. And this really shocked people because remember, Trudeau's whole thing was that he was a very progressive politician. was that he was a very progressive politician.

So you start to see the shine come off of the image, at least, of this golden boy of politics who at one point really seems to have it all. I'm now wondering about his track record of actually governing. How are his policies going over with voters? Look, he definitely scores a few wins, but he very quickly gets into trouble and starts struggling in that department as well. I think a good example of that is this policy known as the carbon tax that he launches and it just becomes deeply unpopular. It's convoluted, it's complicated.

The opposition paints it as this huge burden on Canadians and he continues to struggle to sell it as a success. But where his problems and his troubles with the Canadian public really start to compound is when the pandemic hits. And as vaccine mandates and protracted restrictions on movement and social interactions in the economy really take their toll on Canadian society,

a lot of people start more directly turning against him. I have actually been out here since last Saturday. Monty, who do not want to share his last name, is one of hundreds of truckers blocking the roads around Parliament in Canada's capital city, Monty, who do not want to share his last name, is one of hundreds of truckers blocking the roads around Parliament in Canada's capital city, demanding an end to vaccine mandates. And there is a small but very vocal minority in Canada that really erupts in protest against these restrictions, also known as the freedom convoy.

The freedom convoy, that's what they call themselves. It's snowballed now to sort of blockade in Canada for days. We've seen chaos in Ottawa. It started as a protest against vaccine requirements for lorry drivers, but it's mushroomed to an anti-government movement, which has paralysed not only this capital city, but vital trade routes between Canada and the US. And it sort of grew into a broader protest movement against Justin Trudeau and the things

he stood for. And of course, coming out of the pandemic, Canada's economy, like so many other economies around the world, is really crippled. It's facing rapid inflation and labor shortages. is really crippled. It's facing rapid inflation and labor shortages. So you have all these economic problems starting to stack up. And I think this brings us to one of the biggest policy failures for Trudeau, which has been his immigration policy in response to those post-pandemic labor shortages. And in order to get Canada's economy going again, the Trudeau government decides to bring in millions of temporary foreign workers to fill in jobs that they're saying Canadians won't do. And the result for that is that within two and a half, three years, the country adds more than three million people

in its population. It goes from 38 million total population to more than 41 million. And while that actually does do some good things for the economy. The addition of millions of new people in Canada stretches resources that were already quite thin and it compounds the housing crisis and an access to health care crisis that were already brewing since before the pandemic. Ultimately, Mr. Trudeau acknowledged that this policy had created serious problems and announced that it needed to be rapidly curtailed. But the damage had been done to his reputation and to the trust that the electorate showed him.

And Trudeau sees his popularity plummet to historic lows, he becomes frankly loathed among Canadians who poll after poll for several months say they want him out, giving his opponents, the Conservative Party, a double digit lead, coming to the end of 2024, a 25-point lead over the liberals. Wow. So what's the response from the party? The Liberal Party doesn't have a formal mechanism to get rid of Trudeau. And it's also Trudeau's party. Remember, the party was crushed and he brought it back from the dead. So it becomes really hard to separate the party and the man. And yet...

Calls are growing ever louder for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to quit. On a recent call involving a third of its liberal parties, members of parliament, they all agreed that it was time for the PM to go. Starting from members of parliament and growing voices within the party, start to ask him to leave

and let someone else lead the party and the country. The prime minister needs to step down. He needs to step down immediately for us to have any chance in the next election. I'm here to repeat the message that I delivered to the prime minister that I believe he needs to step down and call leadership race.

The message that I've been getting loud and clear and more and more strongly as time goes by is that it's time for him to go. And I agree. But Mr. Trudeau appears completely attached to his position. He says, I am not going anywhere until in December, one of his most important allies, the country's deputy prime minister, a woman named Christian Freeland, resigns in acrimony and indicates that she can no longer support him. She says Trudeau has been governing the country

with a narrow political gain in mind, rather than having the best interest of Canadians at heart. And this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. So I thought it might be fun for us to do this again. Justin Trudeau takes the holiday season to reflect on his future, and then on Monday, he finally addresses the nation. I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister. And announces that he intends to step down as prime minister and as Liberal party leader. We were elected to strengthen the economy post-pandemic and advance Canada's interests in a complicated world. And that is exactly the job that I and we will continue to do for Canadians.

Thank you very much, my friends. And in doing so, he puts the country on course for a lengthy, messy, chaotic transition, at the end of which a new leadership could put Canada on a completely different course to the one it's been on for the last 10 years. We'll be right back. So, Matina, now that Trudeau has announced that he's stepping down, what happens next? Where does this messy, chaotic transition that you mentioned, where does it go from here? Well, practically speaking, the Liberal Party

will take the next few weeks to elect a new leader, and that person will automatically become the prime minister. But I think that will be very short-lived. I think as we go into the spring, the country will hold general elections. And even though a new Liberal leader could rapidly transform

the fortunes of the party, polling does suggest that the Conservative Party of Canada and its leader, Pierre Poliev, a 45-year-old career politician, are going to be winning or likely winning the next federal election. OK, so tell me about him, this potential new leader. After nine years of this prime minister, everything is broken. 25% of Canadians are now living in poverty. Two million lined up at food banks.

38% more people are homeless. Housing costs have doubled. It wasn't like this before this prime minister, and it won't be like this before this prime minister and it won't be like this after he's gone. So Pierre Pouillier presents as a pretty mainstream populist 21st century right wing leader. Capping spending, cutting waste to bring down inflation and interest rates by removing bureaucracy to build more affordable homes. And his message tends to be short, pithy.

He loves slogans like, ask the tax, stop the crime. He endorses traditional family values. He believes in the nuclear family and so on. And I think a lot of his messaging is fairly textbook conservative. He believes, for example, in the deregulation of the economy, getting the government out of the way of people's lives, of businesses cutting red tape, same things that we're hearing from conservatives in other parts of the world. But Mr. Poulier is also someone who has been very smart about

harvesting this moment of anti-progressive politics that are really rising right now. Some people might call it anti-woke. And he has been able to make that part of his brand. The Prime Minister has no business in decisions that should rest with provinces and parents. So my message to Justin Trudeau is butt out and let provinces run schools and let parents raise kids. And his promise to Canadians is to frankly be the opposite of Justin Trudeau.

This is the consequence of Trudeau NDP policies and Canadians across the country, but especially right here in the South Okanagan are demanding common sense, which is what I represent. percent. It sounds like he's someone who may be more potentially aligned with Trump than Trudeau, right? I sort of think of Poliever and Trump as ideological cousins. I think there's a lot of overlap in some of the core traditional conservative ideas that both leaders espouse, and those are, again, quite textbook. They're not particularly fresh or new. I think, too, that Mr. Poliev is very smart about using social media in his favor.

Of course, this is a moment with Elon Musk and X that is playing in Mr. Poliev's favor, and he really knows how to use that. He has been a strong communicator. Experts say the strongest communicator Justin Trudeau had ever had to face and Justin Trudeau was considered a very strong communicator. And so yes there are several similarities with Trump. Nonetheless, Mr. Poliev is also very Canadian. You will hear him talk about really curbing the immigration program that Mr. Trudeau ushered in, which backfired, but you will never really hear him say things that are profoundly anti-immigrant. And so there are still many elements of Mr. Poliev that are, you know, unique to this country

and unique to Canadian conservatism, I think. So, I mean, the results of these elections are not a foregone conclusion by any stretch, but it sounds like if Poliev takes the reins of government in Canada, Trump would be facing a very different situation in Canada than the one that he had when he first came to office. I mean, we're talking about a potential, as you said, ideological cousin versus what he had in Trudeau, which was someone who was opposed to him ideologically. I agree. I mean, it will definitely be different. We don't have enough

information right now to know what Polly ever plans to do when it comes to actually sitting down with Donald Trump. And I would add here that just from observation, political affiliation does not necessarily mean that you get a good deal from Donald Trump. So much of what transpires when leaders meet with Donald Trump trying to advance their country's agenda comes down to tactics and personal chemistry. And this is a personal chemistry that's completely untested, as opposed, for example, to the Trudeau Trump chemistry, which we watched play out for several years.

And it's not just about getting along, right? Canada and the United States are each other's closest allies and biggest trading partners. And Mr. Trump has beef with Canada. He has Canada in his crosshairs. He has talked about wanting to close the trade surplus that Canada has over the United States. He wants Canada to do a better job protecting the joint border between the two countries. And he is very importantly, threatening to slap a 25% tariff on Canadian goods imported into the United States, a tariff that would crush the Canadian economy and send it into a recession. So these are very serious issues that the new leader of Canada will

need to negotiate over with Mr. Trump. And yes, potentially being ideological cousins could be an advantage for Mr. Polievri if he is that leader. But it's not a foregone conclusion that the two men would see eye to eye. It would be a new relationship that would have to be built up and tested. Matina, just reflecting on the larger story you've been telling us, and you alluded to this earlier, the fact that there has been this larger anti-incumbency movement across the globe, specifically against liberal incumbents. In many countries, you have this mix of anti-immigrant sentiment and economic frustrations that have really spelled trouble for progressive political parties. And I'm

wondering what you think the fall of Trudeau signifies for the world. I mean, Natalie, I think first of all, the end of the Trudeau era here in Canada certainly fits that trend that you've described, the rise of voters against incumbents, particularly liberal governments that were in power during the pandemic. People around the world, we've seen it in the United States and in Europe, have become deeply disenchanted with the way progressive politicians manage the economic fallout, as well as other elements and facets of their lives in the course of the last few years, and are just voting them out one by one. And Justin Trudeau certainly fits that pattern.

And I think there's a sort of, you know, poetry to it, not to be all romantic in a tragic way, but you know, this is an era of the growing popularity of progressive politics, the vision and the hope and the dream around it that Trudeau was an icon for. And that era is very clearly coming to an end, a crushing end. And it almost feels inevitable that with it, Trudeau's career would also end and mark a sort of bookend to that period of progressive politics. And what will come next for centrist or center-left political parties in the developed world is up for debate. But whatever Justin Trudeau stood for as a symbol in the past, I think we can safely say that that's over. Matina, thank you so much. Thank you, Natalie.

We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today. Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like. And it would also be much better for national security. Don't forget, we basically protect Canada. In an hour long news conference from Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump repeated his threats to take control of Canada, and said he told hockey legend Wayne Gretzky to vie for the prime

ministership. Canada is subsidized to the tune of about $200 billion a year, plus other things. Trump criticized Canada, saying it should become a U.S. state because of the financial support the United States provides the country. Can you assure the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not gonna use military

or economic coercion? No. Can you tell us a little bit? Trump also refused to rule out using military force to annex Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, and to retake the Panama Canal, which the U.S. ceded to Panama by treaty in the late 1990s. The president-elect threatened to quote, tariff Denmark at a very high level if it doesn't give Greenland to the U.S.

Firing back, Justin Trudeau said their quote, isn't a snowball's chance in hell of joining Canada and the U.S. Danish Prime Minister, Mehta Fredriksen, said that Greenland's prime minister was very clear that quote, Greenland is not for sale and will not be in the future. And the Panamanian foreign minister said quote,

the canal belongs to the Panamanians, and it will continue to be that way. And a wildfire broke out in Southern California on Tuesday morning and rapidly grew in intensity. The blaze destroyed homes and forced tens of thousands of residents to flee. By Tuesday evening, Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles and Ventura counties as the wildfire continued to rage. Officials warned that the worst was yet to come.

Today's episode was produced by Carlos Prieto, Diana Nguyen, and Michael Simon Johnson. It was edited by Maria Byrne and Devin Taylor. Fact check by Susan Lee. Contains original music by Marian Lozano, Diane Wong, and Alicia Bait-Eetoop. And was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Wonderly.

That's it for the daily. I'm Natalie Kitchroweth. See you tomorrow.