Canada PM Trudeau likely to announce resignation, source says

OTTAWA - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is increasingly likely to announce that he intends to step down, though he has not made a final decision, a source familiar with his thinking said on Jan 5.

The source spoke to Reuters after The Globe and Mail newspaper reported that Mr Trudeau was expected to announce as early as Jan 6 that he would quit as leader of Canada’s ruling Liberal Party after nine years in office.

The source requested anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly.

Mr Trudeau’s

departure would leave the party without a permanent head

at a time when polls show the Liberals will badly lose to the official opposition Conservatives in an election that must be held by late October.

Sources told The Globe and Mail that they did not know definitely when Mr Trudeau would announce his plans to leave but said they expect it would happen before an emergency meeting of Liberal legislators on Jan 8.

An increasing number of Liberal parliamentarians, alarmed by a series of gloomy polls, have publicly urged Mr Trudeau to quit.

The Canadian Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours. The Prime Minister’s regularly published schedule for Jan 6 said he would participate virtually in a Cabinet committee meeting on Canada-US relations.

It remains unclear whether Mr Trudeau will leave immediately or stay on as prime minister until a new leader is selected, The Globe and Mail’s report added.

Calls to resign grow

Mr Trudeau took over as Liberal leader in 2013 when the party was in deep trouble and had been reduced to third place in the House of Commons for the first time.

If he does resign, it would likely spur fresh calls for a quick election to put in place a stable government able to deal with the administration of US President-elect Donald Trump for the next four years.

Mr Trudeau has discussed with Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc whether he would be willing to step in as interim leader and prime minister, one source told the newspaper, adding that this would be unworkable if Mr LeBlanc plans to run for the leadership.

Mr Trudeau, 53, had been able to fend off Liberal legislators worried about the polls and the loss of safe seats in two special elections.

But calls for him to step aside have grown since December, when Mr Trudeau tried to demote then Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, one of his closest Cabinet allies, after she pushed back against his proposals for more spending.

Ms Freeland quit instead and penned a letter accusing Mr Trudeau of “political gimmicks” rather than focusing on what was best for the country.

Mr Trudeau propelled the Liberals to power in 2015 promising “sunny ways” and a progressive agenda that promoted the rights of women and a promise to fight climate change.

But the everyday realities of governing gradually wore him down and, like many Western leaders, the need to deal with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic ate up much of his time.

Although Ottawa spent heavily to protect consumers and businesses, racking up record budget deficits, this provided little protection from public anger as prices soared.

A botched immigration policy led to hundreds of thousands of arrivals, straining an already overheated housing market. REUTERS