Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigns

Justin Trudeau announced his resignation as Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada on Monday. Trudeau said he would remain interim prime minister until the Liberal Party chooses its new leader.

“I am a fighter”, Trudeau said during his press conference on his resignation. “The fact is that, despite all efforts to achieve this, Parliament has been paralyzed for months. »

Trudeau said that if he “has to fight internal battles,” he would not be the “best option” for the upcoming Canadian election, where the Conservatives and their leader Pierre Poilievre are currently favored to win.

Trudeau said he had asked Canada’s Governor General Mary Simon to “prorogue” Parliament until March 24. to end the current session and effectively suspending Parliament until the designated date. Unlike the dissolution of Parliament, at the end of the prorogation period, the same representatives will reconvene for a new session.

“Parliament has been paralyzed for months after what was the longest session of a minority parliament in Canadian history,” Trudeau said.

Trudeau has been leader of the Liberal Party since 2013 and became prime minister in 2015. He is under increasing pressure to resign after a series of Liberal election defeats, scandals within the party and falling approval ratings.

Even if the fall of the Prime Minister began With Conservative Don Stewart’s surprise victory in June for a seat in Toronto-St. Paul’s held by the Liberals since the 1980s, pressure for his resignation mounted following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States in November.

Many members of Trudeau’s own party agreed with the opposition that Trudeau was unfit to lead Canada through tough negotiations against Trump, who has threatened to increase tariffs on Canadian goods unless his border with America is not controlled.

The final and fatal blow to the Trudeau government came when his Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland, resigned on December 16. Freeland wrote a scathing resignation letter that criticized Trudeau for irresponsible spending on “expensive political gimmicks” in the face of Trump’s tariff threats.

The Trudeau administration thus became the second Western government to collapse following Trump’s election, the first being the left-wing “Traffic Light Coalition” government in Germany. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said hours after the US election results, Trump’s return helped split Germany’s ruling coalition.

This is breaking news and has been updated since its original publication.