Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives to deliver a statement after meeting with the National Association of Manufacturers president and CEO Jay Timmons in Washington, U.S., on Jan. 9.Marko Djurica/Reuters
A prime minister’s most fundamental responsibility is to leave the country more prosperous, more united and safer than when they assumed office – to build a stronger Canada. Justin Trudeau’s time in office is not quite finished, and it will take years more to fully assess his decade as prime minister. But it is already clear that Mr. Trudeau has fallen far short of the mark. He leaves Canada worse off than he found it, on several fronts.
The Trudeau Liberals came to power promising to build middle-class prosperity and claiming that Canadians were losing ground under the Harper Conservatives.
From the perspective of 2025, it’s clear that the reverse is true. The Harper years saw steady, if unspectacular, increases in the best benchmark of prosperity: gross domestic product adjusted for population and inflation, or real GDP per capita.
In Mr. Trudeau’s first four years, the real GDP per capita rose at a compounded average of 0.91 per cent a year, besting the annual average growth of 0.65 per cent during Mr. Harper’s last four years in office. The economic disruption of the pandemic reversed some of that increase, but massive government spending pushed real GDP per capita to new heights by the end of the first half of 2022.
Those gains dissolved under the combined pressures of a burst of inflation and an immigration-driven surge in population. Real GDP per capita started declining in the third quarter of 2022, and it has continued to fall through to the third quarter of last year. After nearly a decade under the Liberals, the dollar value of each Canadians’ share of national economic output has barely changed – just 1.9 per cent higher than when the Liberals took power. Under Mr. Harper, Canadians’ prosperity, as measured by real GDP per capita, grew by more than twice as much over a similar period.
That said, the Trudeau government did take substantial steps to relieve economic inequality. The Canada Child Benefit can only be fairly seen as a great success, with child poverty rates plummeting since 2014, even after taking into account increases in recent years.
The national dental program has a similar potential to help lower-income Canadians. And national child care subsidies have assisted many families, although the government failed to ensure that all families were able to benefit from that program. Despite some successes in redistribution, the overall verdict is clear: Mr. Trudeau failed to create a more prosperous Canada.
Mr. Trudeau’s record is similarly blemished when it comes to national unity. Quebec separatism is resurgent, with the Parti Québécois positioned to return to power and promising a new referendum on secession. Western alienation has surged under Mr. Trudeau, as well.
Not all of the blame for this can be laid at Mr. Trudeau’s feet. The implosion of François Legault’s nationalist Coalition Avenir Québec has greatly aided in the PQ’s resurrection. Politicians in Alberta and Saskatchewan have chosen to fan regional grievances. And Mr. Trudeau has not gotten full credit for the Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion, a true nation-building measure.
But Mr. Trudeau’s increasing propensity for wedge politics as Liberal fortunes waned has played a large role in dividing Canadians. The decision to make coronavirus vaccines a campaign issue, using the federal fuel tax to favour regions of the country favourable to the Liberals – those and other irresponsible choices have created divisions in Canadian society.
But it is on the question of a safer Canada that Mr. Trudeau’s failures loom largest. The Canada of 2015 that first elected Mr. Trudeau existed in a relatively placid world. That world is gone, replaced by one that is far more dangerous. Russia’s war against Ukraine has dragged on nearly three years. China is bolstering that effort while rattling its own sabre. And the United States, at the very least, is no longer a dependable guarantor of Canada’s national security.
To all those growing threats, Mr. Trudeau’s response has been ineffectual, at best. There has been support for Ukraine but Canada’s own defences have been allowed to crumble; the Liberals’ moves to rebuild the military have been halting and half-hearted. The result is a country far less safe than a decade ago, and whose voice is increasingly marginal.
There is more, of course, much more to the story of Mr. Trudeau’s time in office. The definitive history will not be written for years. But it is already all too clear that Mr. Trudeau’s chief legacy is a weakened Canada.