Justin Ling
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, dean of the G-7, has outlived a lot.
His tenure has coincided with the terms of two French presidents; four U.S. administrations; and a list of prime ministers—four in Japan, five in Italy, and a whopping six in the United Kingdom.
At his peak, Trudeau was hailed as the poster boy for a new global liberalism: hip, cosmopolitan, progressive, and a man fit for our current challenges. At his lowest, he has been skewered as patient zero of neoliberalism, a hollow and elitist system of politics that was long on rhetoric and light on deliverables.
Trudeau now sets off on his long goodbye. He announced on Jan. 6 that he would resign as the leader of his Liberal Party and, by extension, as prime minister—but not before his party picks a replacement. To buy his party some time, Trudeau has shut down Parliament, setting its return for late March.
Canada is set to host the G-7 summit in June, and it is far from clear who will be leading the country then. Will it be someone carrying the baton for Trudeau’s liberalism? Will it be Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who has fashioned his reactionary populist politics to reject everything that Trudeau represents?
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