FINALLY: Trudeau QUITS politics, won’t seek re-election
“I will not be running in the upcoming election,” Trudeau told reporters Wednesday afternoon. He would not speculate on his future plans as of publication.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will not seek re-election as member of Parliament for his Montreal-area riding of Papineau. He prorogued Parliament last week with the intent of choosing his successor.
“I will not be running in the upcoming election,” Trudeau told reporters Wednesday afternoon.
“As to what I might be doing later,” he said, “I honestly haven’t had much time to think about that at all.”
Trudeau prorogued Parliament on January 6, with his successor slated to take over as prime minister on March 9. The new leader, widely expected to be either Mark Carney or Chrystia Freeland, can then reconvene Parliament after a throne speech on March 24.
Until then, Trudeau is “entirely focused on doing the job that Canadians elected me to do in an extraordinarily pivotal time right now.”
The next budget appropriations vote will take place two days later, determining whether a snap election is held. Once the election writ is issued, the prime minister would cease to be the MP of Papineau, a role he has held since 2008.
Following Freeland’s shocking departure from cabinet, a Liberal caucus meeting on December 16 revealed continued calls for Trudeau to resign.
Disgruntled Liberals have held closed-door meetings to boot Trudeau since June, after a shocking byelection defeat in Toronto. Some have suggested a “secret ballot vote” but there is no internal mechanism to initiate that.
The party failed to adopt provisions of the 2015 Reform Act that would allow for a leadership review if petitioned by at least 20% of the caucus.
A Liberal leadership review can only be initiated through a “leadership endorsement” ballot following a general election defeat.
Trudeau went on to lose another byelection in Montreal and the B.C. mainland, with New Democrats tearing up his supply and confidence agreement in September.
Twenty-three Liberal MPs called for the prime minister to resign during a tense October 23 caucus meeting, though few came forward publicly. More dissent followed Freeland’s resignation.
“Canadians have clearly lost confidence in him, and Canadians want him to go,” Liberal MP Anthony Housefather said last month.
A recent Ipsos poll found that nearly three-quarters of Canadians wanted Trudeau to step down, amid flailing support.
“It’s clear they’ve tuned him out, and he is not the best person to deliver the message of our party in the next election,” said Housefather at the time, noting “a more centrist vision” could bring back voters.
New Democrats have expressed interest in backing a new Liberal leader for another minority government situation—under the right circumstances.
More than half of Canadians want an election triggered before October 2025, the poll uncovered.

Alex Dhaliwal
Calgary Based Journalist
Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.

COMMENTS
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Bernhard Jatzeck commented 2025-01-17 00:51:43 -0500Bruce, many of us said the same thing after that “walk in the snow”, and look what we ended up with. In another 30 years, there could well be yet another Trudeau in charge. Fortunately, I won’t be around to suffer for it.
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Bruce Atchison commented 2025-01-16 19:39:30 -0500I hope and pray it takes decades for the Liberals to recover from Trudeau’s idiocy. His dopey ideas have ruined Canada. It’ll take decades to fix the damage. I hope he never gets any sort of leadership position ever again. Let him live his foppish life in private and leave us all alone!