Monday brought a sigh of relief to the long suffering citizens of Canada: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his plans to resign, signaling an end to quite possibly the worst administration in the history of the country. Though Trudeau, who was elected in November of 2015, started off his administration with a sunny disposition full of progressive bona fides (his cabinet featured full gender parity because “This is 2015!” as he explained at the time), he leaves a legacy of failed leadership, especially during the COVID years, when his policies ripped the country apart.
Trudeau’s disastrous COVID regime was fueled by the routine smearing of his own people, often justified by libelous comparisons with the January 6 perpetrators (it’s no small irony that he announced he is resigning on January 6). Trudeau is most infamous for his heavy handed response to the Freedom Convoy, a wildly popular citizens revolt against his government’s COVID authoritarianism. The protest involved truckers and other working-class people traveling to the nation’s capital of Ottawa to air their concerns peacefully and even joyfully in massive convoys of trucks from every corner of the country. Yet before those convoys even made their way to the capital, Trudeau, his ministers, and their contacts in the media, were conspiring to smear the protesters as violent extremists bent on bringing a January 6 north to Canada.
When the Freedom Convoy did arrive in Ottawa, Trudeau, having a narrative to live up to, skipped town to hide out at a cabin in rural Quebec, showing himself to be the coward so many already believed him to be. What he ended up hiding from was the largest peaceful protest in Canadian history, marked by no violence at all; it was instead the best party Ottawa has ever seen, and may ever see (it may be rivaled by the partying that will occur when he does finally step down as Prime Minister, though the bouncy castle and hockey games may not be brought out to celebrate his exit).
Trudeau leaves the Canadian economy in shambles, with a dollar in free fall that hasn’t been valued this low in years. He leaves behind some of the highest real estate prices on Earth, a solid middle class life now out of reach for many. He leaves a shocking number of homeless people on the streets of Canada, which now has thousands of people living in tent encampments, a scene many Canadians would once believed only possible in an American city such as San Francisco.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference at Rideau Cottage in Ottawa, Canada on January 6, 2025. Trudeau announced his resignation.
DAVE CHAN/AFP via Getty Images
Beyond mere economic policy, Trudeau’s approach to immigration has also contributed greatly to the misery of Canada’s citizens, and those who hope to become one. Canada’s various student and temporary foreign worker programs have come under great scrutiny, with questionable diploma mills taking advantage of international students who often live together in fairly cramped conditions and are regularly exploited in horrific ways.