At Issue - Justin Trudeau’s decision to step down

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

After months of pressure, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced he will resign once the Liberals select a new leader. The National’s At Issue panel breaks down the historic day in Canadian politics, what it means for the federal parties and what happens next. Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Aaron Wherry.

Mama, look at me. Brum, brum. I'm going really fast. I just got my license. Can I borrow the car, please, Mom? Kids go from 0 to 18 in no time. You'll be relieved they have 24-7 roadside assistance with intact insurance. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Rosemary Barton. This week on a special podcast edition of At Issue for Monday, January 6th. Justin Trudeau's time of reflection is over. I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader.

The pressure to leave from outside and inside. This country deserves a real choice in the next election and it has become clear to me that if I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option. We're asking what will Trudeau's resignation mean for the Liberals, the opposition and more importantly for Canadians. Chantelle Bair, Andrew Coyne and Aaron Wherry join me to talk about a historic day in Canadian politics. Chantelle, I'll start with you.

Was it surprising? Not surprising? Where is your head at? Not surprising. This is not a choice. It had become an obligation. The Prime Minister had two options today. He could have called an election and told Canadians that having lost the confidence of his second in command, the finance minister, and his caucus, he was asking them, Canadians, to give him another term, or he could quit. And basically, that is what he did. And he didn't even try to disguise it as a choice, by the way.

It was basically, I'm quitting because of internal dissent. Well, yeah, that's a polite way to put it. But this is not what he wanted to do. And how do we totally know this? Because of all of the interviews he canceled, there is one that he did give before the Christmas break, before Christoph Friedland resigned. And if you listen to it, this was not a person who was going to resign on January 6th. Well, I mean, even, Andrew, the fact that he told his kids just last night leads me to believe that this wasn't a decision

that he's been sitting on for days, maybe talking about for weeks, but maybe only came to this decision shortly. Well, there's a moment when you make the final acknowledgement, but I think the decision was, I think, made sometime before that. I'm not sure how much he could really have withstood, as Chantel says, when you're looking at a beating on Wednesday of the caucus, where I think they really were going to read him the riot act for good. He can narrowly escape the charge that he's been forced to step down, but effectively, he's been forced to step down.

And really, I think he's only the third prime minister in Canadian history that that can be set up where an internal caucus revolt has basically forced him out of office. Aaron? Yeah, I mean, I think the only reason to wonder what he was going to do this week was the fact that he hadn't resigned already. The fact that he had been so willing, I guess, to stick it out and not take any of the available exit ramps was the only reason I had, I think,

maybe 1 percent concern or thought that maybe he would try to stick it out. You know, there had been reporting that the Ontario caucus, the Atlantic caucus, the Quebec caucus of the Liberal Party had, you know, met and come to the consensus decision that they wanted him to resign. I mean, that's upwards of 80% of the Liberal caucus. It's hard to know how he could have possibly done anything other than what he did today. Even the idea that he would potentially go into an election, which has been floated by other people, floated by many people, I don't know whether the Liberal Party would have let him lead them into another election.

So it really did seem like this was down to really the last option. So how does he leave the Liberal Party now, Chantel, as it gets ready to choose a new leader and inevitably, and we'll talk about an election in the next block, but how does he leave the party? I mean, I've watched prime ministers resign late in the game before, but in this particular case and in these circumstances, Justin Trudeau is leaving his party for sure, his caucus for sure, but also the country in a bad place. And I'm not saying that because liberal policies. I'm saying that because on January 20th, Donald Trump is going to become president.

And we will be in the middle of turmoil, Parliament not sitting, leadership campaign, which is probably the worst possible time. And there is no reference point for how bad this could be. But it is bad to have waited so long and then to leave this to a process still undefined until at least the end of March, possibly with an election, which basically means we would spend the next six months in some political uncertainty that is leaving the country in a bad place. But I mean what was the other option Andrew? I mean if he had to leave or call an election it's the I mean I guess the other option was he should

have left sooner is that is that the only thing that we're safe? Let's leave that to one side let's say just he was justifying and hanging on this long. He did not have to prorogue parliament for close to three months. He did not have to, the party does not have to have a two or three month long leadership race. He does not have to stay on. It's an option.

But he did all these things at the same time. So to take up Chantel's point, for three months, we're not going to have, or close, for three months we're not going to have, or close to three months, we're not going to have a functioning parliament that will be shut down. We will not have from this day forward an effective prime minister. I mean, he will find he has very little leverage at this point. We are not going to have a government that is legitimate in the sense that everybody knows that it's under the gun of a conference vote. The only reason it's prorogued is so that they can avoid that.

So you've got the government essentially hiding from Parliament. You're going to have ministers of the Crown, rather than intending to the country's business, will be running around the country slagging each other off and trying to destroy each other when they should be fighting Donald Trump. So at a very moment when we are under attack, under economic attack, and by a guy who plainly wishes us ill. It's not just the tariffs. It's also the fallout from the mass deportations. There's the NATO business.

There's whatever the hell he means by the 51st state thing that he keeps coming back to. So to pick this moment of all time to, as Chantel says, basically until June we are not going to have an effective prime minister. We're not going to have a government that has the support of parliament, June we are not going to have an effective prime minister we're not going to have a government that has the support of parliament and we're not going to have a parliament really for more than a few days but but to a point and I'll put this to Aaron to a point that that both Chantal and Andrew have made is you know there's a need for a prime minister who

has a mandate to take on Donald Trump and at the end of this process it may take us a while we will be there we will have someone who now has a clear mandate to take on the president. Yeah and I think the point though is that it would be a lot cleaner to have had a prime minister with a new mandate in place six months ago or four months ago or you know insert your timeline here. The the yeah the Trudeau you know look there were reasons for Trudeau to plausibly look at his situation even in June when he lost the by-election in St. Paul's and tell himself that he was still the best option for the Liberal Party, that he should still stay on.

But if he was going to make that gamble, he really needed to be sure that he could keep his cabinet and his caucus together. And he couldn't. And now the downside of that gamble is he is going to have to preside as essentially a lame duck prime minister over at least the first few weeks of Donald Trump's second term. The Liberal Party is going to have maybe two months to pick a new leader, and that new leader is going to have to go very quickly, presumably, into an election.

And that's, you know, the consequences of the decision that Trudeau made to try to stay on. It was always a gamble, and it hasn't obviously paid off. Last quick word to you, Chantal, then I gotta go. Seriously, I'm waiting to see if the Liberal Party has adults in the room to come up with a process and not take the time it takes to choose a new

pope to come up with that. Time is kind of the essence at this point. Yeah. Andrew, you wanted 10 seconds there? They could just call it an interim leader and you could have the caucus choose it. That would be better from a number of perspectives, one of which of course is we're all very worried about foreign interference. And if they do another round with these, you

know, mass signups of supporters who don't even pay a fee, the potential for interference is also really serious in this case. At issue after the Prime Minister's resignation announcement, the path ahead. Opposition parties have called for it but they still need to wait. Parliament is prorogued until March while the Liberals scramble to pick a replacement. 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 in the House and in Canadian politics. Okay, here to break down the path forward in Canadian politics, Chantal, Andrew and Aaron back for another round.

It was fascinating to watch the opposition parties respond to this decision because it does sort of throw into upheaval, I think a little bit, what this is going to mean for them and how they respond. Aaron, do you want to kick us off on that in terms of the conservatives, the NDP, or anyone else? Aaron Ross Yeah, to borrow the Prime Minister's own analogy, the idea of removing him from the equation, if you look at the opinion polls and say the conservatives have, let's say, a a 25 point lead right now over the liberals, maybe it's more than that. You could look at that and say maybe some of that is just because Justin Trudeau is

the leader of the Liberal Party, is the leader of the government and the public is simply tired of Justin Trudeau and if you remove him from the equation then maybe those polls change somewhat. I think we'll see whether that comes to pass. I think it does scramble the playing board for the conservatives and to a lesser extent the NDP because so much of the conservative message has been based on the idea that Justin Trudeau is a bad leader and he has implemented bad policies. And now it's possible that not only is there going to be a new leader, but that leader

may take a slightly different tact, may, you know, ultra-liberal policy may make different promises. I don't know that it fundamentally resets things because again, we're talking about a 20 to 25 point lead, but it does add some uncertainty to the situation and it is a challenge, a potential challenge for the conservatives and the New Democrats. Chantal? I think the biggest unknown in the equation is how we will all feel about where we are at and parliamentary games or whatever after January 20th and by March 24th.

I don't know that. You don't know that. But I'm assuming that if tariffs come to pass and Donald Trump lives up to his reputation, Canadians will be looking at the room, looking for the adult in the room. And at that point, they will have to decide whether one of the leadership contenders, and I don't know who's going to run and what context what's going to happen, looks more of an adult than Pierre Poilier. And I do believe that does change the conversation.

I don't believe it changes it for the better, by the way, for the NDP, because when you look for an adult in the room, you're actually looking for someone who is going to be running the government. And at this point, I don't see that happening for the NDP in the way that they've crafted their message. I looked at Mr. Singh's reaction to Justin Trudeau's resignation today. I looked for a sign of grace or a sign that the two would work together to do things, and I figured this is great.

Jakhmeet Singh has managed to be more of a jerk than Pierre Poilier. Andrew, where do you think this leaves the opposition? Is there advantage here for them, or is there more risk than there was before perhaps? Well, there's risks on all sides. We've talked before about, you know, at one point there was a slim case we made for Justin Trudeau staying on because when you have a leadership race, you open up old wounds, you break up old alliances, you know, a lot of things that you were sure about, you're no

longer sure. So there's risk for the liberals in this. They could come out of this even weaker than they are now if they're not able to coalesce around a viable candidate. So that's point one. Point two, yeah, the conservatives, all things considered, would have preferred running against Trudeau. He clearly runs way behind the party.

But when you look at the polling so far now the polling obviously can change but so far when they pull against the other uh... leading contenders they may be gaining three or four five points they don't gain you twenty five points uh... so they've got a long road all now you know we're gonna find out how much of the animus towards the party is just in the later how much of it is the state of the country how much of it is unpopular policies. But the opposition are already, I think, making the true point, which is that all the people,

at least in the current caucus, signed off on all of the policies. The only reason they decided they needed to get rid of the leader was because he was going to lose the election for them. So they're going to be doing their best to tie them to it. And I'm curious to see how relentless the conservatives are in focusing on Mark Carney, who's not in the caucus, who they seem to think is the lead pipe cinch to win the leadership. I think that's far from true at this point.

But you would certainly gather that from their absolutely monomaniacal focus on him. And we were talking about this through the day, Aaron. But the new liberal leaders need to present change in the face of a country that seems to be asking for change but can't really move itself away from the liberal brand and values. Yeah, I mean, it is a bit of a challenge in that you can't, you know, especially if you've been in this government, you can't, you know, stand up and completely renounce the things you just did.

I mean, I guess you could try. It might not be terribly convincing to the public. I think that the flip side of that is the one candidate that we know of, or I guess there are a couple, but the one that has been most prominent in the discussion, Mark Carney, he has been outside of government, but we really have no idea how he will handle politics or how he will fare as a political candidate. I suspect the conservatives are zeroing in on him in part because it seems like he could win, but in part because that's someone who could represent a significant change in the

Liberal Party and significantly change the electoral calculus if he's, you know, an adept politician. Chantal? And that is where his attraction is. He's not been in government and he looks like an adult in the room, but he also looks like he comes from the same neighborhood as Christopher and Justin Trudeau. So if you're going to have a campaign based on anti-elite populism, it's probably not your best bet. But I go back to my main point, we do not know what environment we will be in at the end of March. And that matters.

Yes. Andrew, last point to you. Well, and if we're into a trade war with the United States and a recession, to take up Chantal's point, there will be a lot of waking up and sobering up in a hurry, and people will be looking. I think economic expertise will be a lot more valuable at that point than other political virtues. And so people might be looking for that kind of thing at that point. And just to end on this, Aaron, does that mean that things that the Liberal Party has stood for, like the carbon tax, fall by the wayside?

I mean, it's an interesting question. It does seem like the one thing that you can imagine a Liberal leadership candidate looking at and saying, you know, by either scrapping that, pledging to scrap that, or pledging to pause that, that's the way I can differentiate myself. That's the way I can differentiate myself. That's the way I can address the attacks that Pierre Poliev has made. There are, I imagine, downsides though to that. I think people who are looking for strong climate action might not be impressed. I think there's also the example of Justin Trudeau himself who filled with that policy

and I don't think that left him any further ahead. If anything, it probably put him further back. With Trudeau's move, Canadians are barreling towards an election and opposition leaders are getting their messages out. This cannot go on. We need a carbon tax election now. Democrats will be voting against this government for an election. Now is time for an election. Now is time for an election. So what can you Canadians expect from the next election? Let's bring everybody back.

Chantel, Andrew and Aaron. Andrew, I'll start with you. Do you think that we are inevitably now headed towards the spring election after prorogation is lifted and there's a new leader? Is that sort of the next step in this? It seems hard to see how they could wriggle out of it but you can never absolutely be sure of it. For example, can we be sure that three months from now the NDP will still see it in its interest to bring this government down? I know we have iron clad statements from Jagmeet Singh, but ironclad statements from any party leader to be fair, you can't necessarily take to the bank.

So with that caveat, no, I mean, at this point, it would certainly look like we're heading for an election, probably called in late March, I guess, and then you'd be looking at about a June election or late May. But one thing I should point out here is uh... the the opposition's had a great time the last little while getting a lot of the play on this for the next little while the liberals are going to dominate the conversation i

think uh... maybe not in always a good way but it's gonna be harder for the opposition to get uh... oxygen harder for them to get coverage uh... so for good or ill the liberals got the stage the next little while yeah and and that could bring with it energy, momentum, the things that the Liberal Party has been lacking, Chantal. It could also bring to Andrew's point the opposite, you know, disaster and division, but there is an opportunity for something positive. Yes, and John Turner and Kim Campbell turned their party's fortunes around when they became leader.

They both entered elections where they were leading in the poll. Yes, very exciting. Kim Campbell ended up with two votes. So, yes, it's possible that this will happen and good for morale for the liberals. That doesn't mean the result will be totally different. As for the timing of the election, I'm not convinced that Jack Mead Singh is all of his caucus on side for this.

I saw Charlie Angus over the Christmas holiday, veteran MP not running again, but still a force in the party say, I'm putting country ahead of party. I'm not going to play in this game. So depending on context, it may be harder for Mr. Singh to bring his caucus to the time when you bring the government down than he assumes

at this point. I don't see his position of leadership to be very strong. Well, and his position on this issue about an election has changed six or seven times over the past month or so, Aaron. Today was the time we heard him be the most aggressive about making it happen. Yeah, I mean, I think anybody trying to make predictions

right now would be rather foolish, not only because we don't know who the liberal leader is going to be and therefore don't really know what the polling is going to look like in a few months. To Chantel's point, again, Donald Trump is going to be president on January 20th and we don't really know or really it's impossible to predict what that's going to mean both politically and economically. Depending on what comes out of that, depending on what comes out of the liberal leadership,

to take one hypothetical, what if the next liberal leader comes out of that leadership and for whatever reason is strong in the polls and the NDP is down? Are the NDP necessarily eager? Is there an argument, further to Charlie Angus's argument, is there an argument at the end of March that given the economic situation,

given the situation with Canada and the United States, that there's some argument for the parties making, at least the liberals and the NDP making some kind of deal to keep things moving for a little while. It's really, there's just, all there is at this point, I think, is uncertainty, is unsatisfying an answer as that is. I will take it. It also means that there's lots and lots of things for us to talk about in the weeks and months ahead.

Thank you all for being here for a special Monday edition. We'll be back here Thursday, maybe more clarity on a liberal leadership race or other things at that point. That's at issue for this Monday. more clarity on a liberal leadership race or other things at that point.