Save the retirement party for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. On Monday, he announced he was leaving politics – sort of. President-elect Donald Trump can barely restrain his growing hostility and disdain for Trudeau, which has reached new heights since Trudeau pretended to be passing the torch to a new Liberal leader.
You had to listen very carefully to Trudeau’s words because his exit was so anticipated by so many Canadians who have long had their fill of Trudeau’s insouciance and narcissism, a lot of people, journalists and folks on YouTube heard what they wanted to hear. But Trudeau only said he intends to retire after the Liberal Party chooses his successor. Ostensibly to help with that process, Trudeau managed to convince Governor General Mary Simon to prorogue – or suspend – Parliament until March 24.
"That's why this morning, I advised the governor general that we need a new session of parliament," Trudeau told reporters. "She has granted this request, and the House will now be prorogued until March 24 over the holidays, I've also had a chance to reflect. I've had long talks with my family about our future throughout the course of my career, any success I have personally achieved has been because of their support, with their encouragement. 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 to the Liberal Party to begin that process."
The governor general is Canada’s head of state as the king’s representative. She is not supposed to be enlisted for partisan politics and Trudeau telling Members of Parliament and senators to go home for another two-and-half months break was as political a request as he could make. Simon should have said no. But Trudeauf got what he wanted and that might be a little more convoluted and sinister than most of the media is willing to say. What happens if Parliament returns on March 24 and the Official Opposition Conservatives manage to push through a non-confidence vote before the Liberals can select a new leader. It’s obvious to anyone that a leadership race will not begin and end before MPs return to the House of Commons. That could mean a snap election and guess who would be leading the Liberals into the abyss? None other than Trudeau who will not have yet retired.
It’s the same game plan that his father, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, used in 1979 after he lost an election to Joe Clark and the Progressive Conservatives on May 22. Trudeau took off for a long canoe trip, grew a beard and tried being the Leader of the Official Opposition after having been prime minister for 11 years. He couldn’t do it and announced he was resigning that November. But in December the Clark government fell after introducing a budget with a gas tax that six Social Credit MPs from Quebec – who were propping up the Conservative minority government – opposed. An election was called for the following February and the Liberals begged Trudeau to stay on as leader since there was no obvious replacement to be found.
Watch Justin Trudeau try the same routine as the party realizes they have no alternative but to ask him to postpone his resignation and run one more time. Think it can’t happen? It’s a real possibility.
Trudeau should run again and receive the shellacking from voters that he has earned. The other scenario is even worse. That would be Trudeau surviving the non-confidence vote with a little help from his socialist friends in the New Democratic Party, proroguing Parliament again and following through with a leadership contest that could keep the Liberals governing for up to six months.
All of this would not be occurring in a vacuum of course and the reality check for the Liberals and Canada itself is the inauguration of President Donald Trump on Jan. 20 and his commitment to stick Canada with a 25 percent tariff on all products. Trump has shown absolutely no indication that he plans to abandon or even amend that threat. He persistently trolls Trudeau on social media as the governor of the 51st state and is now actually talking about simply annexing Canada. You can never quite determine how serious Trump is about anything he says on social media but at the very least he is sending a clear signal that he will negotiate with Trudeau; that he despises Trudeau; and that he does not believe Trudeau is a legitimate leader whom he can take seriously. He should check his Canadian program to realize that the next prime minister will be Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, whom Trump is barely aware of, and not hockey great Wayne Gretzky, whom Trump continues to encourage “to run for prime minister” like it was an office like the American presidency.
I have known Poilievre for 20 years and can say that he is a man who has grown and matured to the point that he is ready to be prime minister. Trudeau has demonstrated precisely the opposite transformation. Instead of becoming an elder statesman, he behaves like a teenage girl, a Taylor Swift devotee who trades friendship bracelets with female adolescents.
Canada cannot endure six months of an unaccountable Liberal government caught up in a leadership race featuring a panel of non-entities who have no hope of reversing their party’s dismal performance in the polls and resurrecting a political brand that is so toxic it can kill. But the Liberals are not even considering how their self-obsessing is not just contrary to the national interest but completely out of sync with reality. It’s like Trudeau’s delusion has spread to anyone who thinks he or she can lead their decrepit party to victory in the summer or fall.
In order to come to terms with Trump and his proposed tariffs, Canada needs an election as soon as possible. Last week, that could still have happened by early March. Now it can’t happen before early May. The Trump tariffs will take their toll every week as Canada’s already moribund economy grinds to a halt, Parliament probably remains suspended and the federal government is absorbed by a leadership race that will provide plenty of photo ops for Liberal hopefuls posing at soup kitchens and unemployment lines. There is a catastrophe just around the corner and it is entirely of Trudeau’s making. His unrestrained ego has pushed Canada to the brink of economic collapse and will certainly push it into the pit.
That damage might be contained or limited to some degree by an earlier election, but it can no longer be reversed or avoided. That is a sad fact of life that Canadians are going to realize over the upcoming weeks and months. And they’re going to be madder than hell at Trudeau and his Liberal government for being responsible for this mess
