Justin Trudeau has announced his resignation as the prime minister of Canada, but I wouldn’t write him off – comprehensively – not just yet. Here are four issues to consider. First, at age fifty-three, he is young and fit. Advanced age, the coded word for diminishing faculty, was the issue most often cited in the minds of American voters and the critics of Biden in the last presidential election before he withdrew. To date, to the best of my knowledge, no would-be successor to Trudeau in his Liberal Party or any major or minor political party has ever insinuated that he lacks the mental capacity to do the job of the prime minister. The profile of a politician in the early fifties with a record close to a decade of experience in the highest office is the envy of most office-seekers; Trudeau should not willy-nilly be dismissed as if he was washed up and no longer in his prime. That is just folly.
Second, there is no natural successor. Granted, voters in Canada will be looking for an alternative, but who will lead the Liberal Party and take it into the next (most likely spring) election remains uncertain. Recent polling shows that the Liberals at 16% approval, the worst pre-election standing for the party in more than a century. Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservatives, appears to be on course to be elected as the next prime minister, yet how long he will be in office and whether he can last as long as Trudeau is anyone’s guess. Now, many blame Trudeau (and Biden and other world leaders) for the seemingly uncontrolled immigration, but immigration has increased and is rising because of a labor shortage in rich, developed countries, including Canada and the United States. Few have the time to sort out the complexity of immigration (legal and illegal) or fully understand the situation. Of course, immigration could have been managed better. Many also blame Trudeau for inflation, but he did not cause inflation. It was and remains a worldwide problem; plainly, Canada is nowhere near some countries with runaway inflation.
Third, by 2027, midterm elections will be held across America, and if voters (south of the Canadian borders) throw out MAGA Republicans such that Trump is weakened, who is to say that the record of the prime minister who succeeded Trudeau wouldn’t be tarnished? The stench of the MAGA Republicans’ defeat may well reach all the way to the residence of the prime minister in Ottawa. Then, it is not at all impossible for Canadian voters to demand a snap election, whereby the Liberals could win and roar back to power. Between now and then, it is not out of the realm of possibility that Trudeau would want to resurrect his premiership. In two years, he will have rested and tanned, with his battery recharged; who can say for sure with any finality that he might not consider a comeback in the manner of Silva da Lula of Brazil and (of course) his southern neighbor residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.?
Fourth, and finally, there is no constitutional prohibition. Unlike the American Twenty-second Amendment, which limits the president of the U.S. to two terms, there are no term limits for the prime minister or other politicians in Canada. Political obituaries of Trudeau have appeared on the websites of many major American, British, Canadian and French news organizations. But these may well be premature. Trudeau should not be underestimated. Between now and March 24, when the prorogation (suspension) of the Canadian parliament ends, political fortunes may yet be reversed. This period of two months can hold many possibilities. If political fortunes can change in two months, then it is not impossible at all events to shift in favor of Trudeau in two years. To write him off comprehensively, as some commentators appeared to have done, is not justified by the nature of politics. If two months is an eternity in politics, then two years will be a long time, long enough for Trudeau to stage a comeback after a brief interregnum. Politics has no finality – as they say – and it would be foolish to count Trudeau out. I know I wouldn’t.