Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces his intention to resign as Liberal Party leader, outside Rideau Cottage in Ottawa on Jan. 6.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
On Monday morning outside Rideau Cottage, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he will resign from his role as Liberal Leader after just over nine years leading the country.
Mr. Trudeau, 53, said he will remain as Prime Minister until the Liberal Party elects a new leader and that Governor-General Mary Simon had granted his request to prorogue Parliament until March 24.
For months Mr. Trudeau had been adamant in public and in private conversations that he would lead the Liberals into the next election against Pierre Poilievre’s front-running Conservatives. But he capitulated after what began as a few sparks of internal revolt six months ago mushroomed into a full-scale crisis for his minority government by the end of 2024.
The final push for his exit was spurred by Chrystia Freeland’s public rebuke in mid-December of the Prime Minister’s policies and politics as she quit his cabinet hours before she was scheduled to deliver the government’s fall economic statement.
What did Trudeau say during his resignation announcement?
“I intend to resign as party leader and as Prime Minister after the party selects its next leader through a robust, nationwide competitive process. Last night, I asked the president of the Liberal Party to begin that process,” Mr. Trudeau said in his announcement.
“This country deserves a real choice in the next election, and it has become clear to me that if I am having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces his resignation in the face of rising discontent over his leadership. Trudeau said that 'internal battles' mean that he 'cannot be the best option' in the next election. Parliament is prorogued until March 24.
The Associated Press
Asked why he decided to resign now given the pressure he’s faced for months, Mr. Trudeau in large part repeated his earlier statement.
“I am a fighter, and I am not someone who backs away from a fight, particularly when a fight is as important as this one,” Mr. Trudeau said. “It has become obvious to me with the internal battles that I cannot be the one to carry the Liberal standard into the next election.”
Mr. Trudeau said one of his regrets is that he didn’t change the country’s electoral system as he promised when his party was first elected in 2015. The Prime Minister said he prefers a ranked-ballot system rather than the current first-past-the-post regime. He said he believes such a change would lead to less polarization but said he couldn’t unilaterally make such a change.
Read his full announcement here.
What does it mean that Trudeau prorogued Parliament?
The House of Commons chamber is seen empty, on April 8, 2020 in Ottawa.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Prorogation is a regular function of how Parliament works. A Parliament is defined as the period between elections and each Parliament is divided into sessions. There are no rules on how many sessions there must be or how long a session can last, according to the Senate of Canada website.
The prime minister has to ask the governor-general to prorogue Parliament, and typically the prime minister will make this request when an election begins. Proroguing Parliament effectively puts a stop to all activity. The current government remains in power but there are no Question Periods nor new bills put forth. Any voting, committee work and investigations are halted. Bills that hadn’t yet received royal assent die on the Order Paper. In other words, those laws cannot be passed but when a new session begins, similar bills can be put forth.
Prorogation ends with the beginning of a new session, after which there needs to be a new Throne Speech. It also differs from dissolution, because after a prorogation, the current government returns. Dissolution terminates all parliamentary functions and paves the way for the next general election.
Opposition MPs cannot topple the government when Parliament is prorogued because all government business comes to a halt, including non-confidence votes that would bring down Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.
Who’s on the shortlist of contenders for the Liberal Party leadership?
Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney is interviewed by Chrystia Freeland, when she was a Thomson Reuters managing director and editor at the National Press Club in Washington April 18, 2013.Gary Cameron/Reuters
As Mr. Trudeau stated in his announcement, a new Liberal Party leader must now be selected. There are a number of potential candidates in the running, including:
- Anita Anand, president of Treasury Board and Transport Minister
- Mark Carney, former governor of Canada’s and England’s central banks
- François-Philippe Champagne, Innovation Minister
- Christy Clark, former premier of B.C.
- Sean Fraser, former housing minister
- Chrystia Freeland, former finance minister and former deputy prime minister
- Mélanie Joly, Foreign Affairs Minister
When can Canadians expect an election?
October is when the next election is officially scheduled, but it will likely happen much sooner.
The decision to prorogue Parliament until March 24 sets the stage for a confidence vote shortly after, which appears likely to trigger a spring election campaign.
The return date is just a few days before a key parliamentary deadline of March 31, when the House of Commons is required to vote on what is called interim supply, which provides federal departments with the base funding they need to operate over the first three months of the fiscal year.
By leaving just a few days between the return of the House of Commons and that deadline, the situation ensures there will be a confidence vote in late March, either on spending or potentially on a motion to approve the Speech from the Throne that follows a prorogation.
The Conservatives, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP all said Monday that they will vote to defeat the government. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, whose party has been the most frequent source of parliamentary support for the minority Liberal government, was particularly adamant Monday that the NDP will vote non-confidence in the government on the first available opportunity.
Political observers say that will leave the new Liberal leader with a near-certain spring campaign.
How the Liberals got here
Mr. Trudeau, the oldest son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, was elected to the House of Commons in 2008 and then as party leader five years later.
2015
He led the Liberals from third-place status in the Commons to a majority government in 2015, roundly defeating the Conservatives on a campaign promising a significant shift away from the policies of then-prime minister Stephen Harper, particularly on climate change and Indigenous reconciliation.
2019
By his second election, the shine of Mr. Trudeau’s “sunny ways” began to wear off with ethics scandals and broken promises. That pushed the Liberals into a minority government.
2021
To regain strength, Mr. Trudeau called a snap election but that hardly moved the dial, with the party winning nearly identical seats.
Spring 2022
The Liberals had to get support from the NDP with a supply-and-confidence agreement. The NDP propped up the minority Liberals in exchange for action on key files such as pharmacare and dental care.
Fall 2022
The Conservatives elected Pierre Poilievre as leader. In the two years since, the long-time MP has led his party to a commanding lead in public opinion through relentless attacks on Mr. Trudeau and his government, accusing them of being out of touch with the concerns of Canadians.
2024
The Liberals tried to fend off Mr. Poilievre’s attacks by touting policies such as their carbon tax rebates and national child care program but failed to gain traction. Meanwhile, in September, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh tore up the supply-and-confidence agreement.
Mr. Poilievre ultimately prompted a new approach: The Liberals hit pause on the carbon price for home heating fuel, introduced billions in new spending in a bid to generate housing supply and recently put in place a two-month GST holiday on popular consumer goods and services.
Canadians have rewarded none of those efforts with boosts in the polls.
Throughout the last year, a number of cabinet ministers with high-profile portfolios resigned or said they would not run in the next election, including Sean Fraser, Randy Boissonnault, Carla Qualtrough, Pablo Rodriguez and Seamus O’Regan.
In December, Chrystia Freeland stepped down from cabinet after learning days earlier that Mr. Trudeau intended to remove her as finance minister in order to appoint Mark Carney to the portfolio. She wrote a scathing letter that painted a picture of the one-time allies as starkly apart on key issues.
Recent polls saw Liberals with 21-per-cent support, while Conservatives hovered close to 47 per cent.
2025
Not even a week into the new year, at least two dozen Liberal MPs had publicly demanded Mr. Trudeau’s exit.
How have political leaders and others reacted to Trudeau’s resignation?
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh told reporters Monday he’ll vote to bring down the Liberal government no matter who the next leader will be, saying the party itself has let down Canadians.
“They do not deserve another chance,” he said.
In a statement after Mr. Trudeau’s announcement, Mr. Poilievre said the country needs an immediate general election rather than a Liberal leadership race. He painted all Liberal MPs and potential leadership candidates with the same brush as Mr. Trudeau, arguing that they all supported the government’s policies until Canadians started to turn on the governing party.
“They want to protect their pensions and paycheques by sweeping their hated leader under the rug months before an election to trick you,” the Conservative Leader said in a statement.
“The Liberals know how wrong this all is, that’s exactly why they shut down Parliament and paralyze government, all to save their own skins.”
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said Mr. Trudeau made the right decision and agreed that an election must be held. He said his party would not work with any new Liberal leader to keep the minority government in power.
“The institution we are facing is the Liberal Party of Canada, it has been deeply transformed by Mr. Trudeau and there is no possible way for this party to become something else in a few weeks,” he said.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May posted a statement to X, saying that watching the Prime Minister’s downfall was akin to painfully watching a slow-motion train wreck. But she also wrote about “the basic human things that should be said,” detailing how she watched his early rise in politics while he prioritized fatherhood.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he still expects outgoing Prime Minister Trudeau to work with him and the other premiers to avoid U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s threatened 25-per-cent tariffs.
“We need the Prime Minister to focus 100 per cent on the U.S. tariffs,” Mr. Ford told reporters Monday at Queen’s Park. “We have 14 days left before [Mr. Trump] is inaugurated. And we need to focus and make sure these tariffs don’t move forward. And if they do move forward, we need to make sure that the federal government has a strong plan.”
But he also said the Prime Minister’s imminent departure creates uncertainty and undermines Canada’s position in talks with the incoming administration – meaning the premiers need to take more of a leadership role.
Across social media, right-wing politicians, influencers and conspiracy theorists have posted gleeful reactions to Justin Trudeau’s resignation announcement.
On Truth Social, president-elect Donald Trump reiterated his recent talking point that the U.S. should annex Canada, which he said would eliminate the need for tariffs and lower taxes. “Many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State. The United States can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat. Justin Trudeau knew this, and resigned.”
With reports from Marieke Walsh, Robert Fife, Stephanie Levitz, Bill Curry, Jeff Gray and Samantha Edwards.