OTTAWA — For the first time in his political career, Justin Trudeau is walking away from a fight — a move that preserves the three-term prime minister and five-term lawmaker’s perfect electoral record.
Canada’s prime minister announced Monday that he plans to resign as Liberal Party leader and will step away once his replacement is chosen.
“I am not someone who backs away, … particularly when a fight is as important as this one,” Trudeau said. “But I have always been driven by my love for Canada, by my desire to serve Canadians and by what is in the best interest of Canadians — and Canadians deserve a real choice in the next election.”
Trudeau led his party for 11 years, launching it from third-party status to majority government in 2015. When Canadians go to the polls in 2025 — a federal election now expected this spring — polls suggest they are likely to elect Canada’s Conservative Party led by Pierre Poilievre.
The prime minister once gained acclaim for besting a Canadian senator in a charity boxing match in 2012. A dozen bruising years later, he’s decided for the first time to stay out of the ring.
1. Rope-a-dope
When Justin Trudeau first got into politics, there were doubts. He brought along a boyish charm and a silver spoon, name recognition and the celebrity he inherited from his father.
But did the drama-teacher-turned-junior-lawmaker who longboarded to work at his Montreal office have the right stuff to lead the country?
Dukes up: Trudeau arrived as the underdog to a charity boxing match in 2012, the year before he was chosen to lead the Liberal Party.
His opponent: Sen. Patrick Brazeau, a built and tattooed former naval reservist with a black belt in karate.
The odds: Chances looked slim for Trudeau; with 3-1 odds, he was poised to be pummeled. When Trudeau, a practiced boxer, won the match, Canada’s political world took notice.
Backstory: In a Rolling Stone interview that proved controversial and offensive, Trudeau shared his thinking behind the stunt. “I wanted someone who would be a good foil, and we stumbled upon the scrappy, tough-guy senator from an Indigenous community. He fit the bill, and it was a very nice counterpoint. … I saw it as the right kind of narrative, the right story to tell.”
The upshot: The contest served as a warning to future challengers: Don’t underestimate Trudeau. The prime minister returns often to that match, journalist Paul Wells noted in a recent book: “Every time he’s in trouble, he thinks, I’ve been in trouble before and they were wrong to count me out.”
2. Autumn gold
On a gorgeous autumn day after his election, Trudeau, hand-in-hand with his then-wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau and flanked by incoming senior officials, walked down the grounds of the stately Rideau Hall, paths lined with hundreds of members of the public eager to for a glimpse of the incoming Cabinet en route to its swearing-in ceremony.
Change of air: Young. Diverse. Fresh players with impressive resumes and compelling backstories.
Made-for-TV images: Senior party officials worked tirelessly to draw a contrast between the previous government of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which had a reputation of being commanding and secretive and hostile to the media.
“The sight of Trudeau taking selfies, hugging ministers, kissing his wife and cuddling his kids was digital media gold,” political columnist John Ivison wrote in his book, “Trudeau: The Education of a Prime Minister.”
The upshot: When he asked why he’d placed as many women as men in his new Cabinet, Trudeau, standing in front of his new team, replied, “Because it’s 2015,” cementing his image globally as a feminist world leader.
3. Disorder in the House
May 2016 provided Canadians an unvarnished glimpse of their new prime minister. The closest thing like it to that point had been an outburst early in his career when he called another politician in Parliament a “piece of shit.”
Ruh roh: When Trudeau was struggling to pass measures in Parliament as his rivals delayed, he physically grabbed a lawmaker who was gumming up the works and attempted to physically drag him to the other end of the House of Commons to get things going.
In the process, he elbowed the young progressive politician Ruth Ellen Brosseau in the chest.
Self-inflicted wound: Trudeau looked hot-headed, impatient, flippant and arrogant. All anathema to his crafted image.
The upshot: At the time, it seemed like an odd interruption, out of character for someone who’d arrived in office promising to do things differently. “Elbowgate,” as it became known, marked the first in a series of gaffes that would wear away at his shining image.
4. Handshake diplomacy
Despite their differences over trade, U.S. President Barack Obama and Trudeau shared a “bromance” that made international headlines.
The “family photo” at the “Three Amigos” summit in June 2016 presented a weird three-way handshake that went from awkward to good vibes when Trudeau went to shake Obama’s hand and then reached for Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s too soon.
Charmed offensive: The odd-but-fun triple shake showed off Trudeau’s goofy and dorky side — warm and fuzzy vibes that wouldn’t last.
His opponent: Trudeau soon had to contend with a Donald Trump presidency, which threatened to upend NAFTA, the free trade deal with the U.S., Canada’s largest trading partner.
The stakes: Trump was known as an aggressive handshaker. The one with Shinzo Abe, prime minister of Japan at the time, went viral when he squeezed his hand for 19 seconds in a play for dominance and humiliation.
During their first meeting, Trudeau had better results. He’d braced himself against Trump’s shoulder and at another moment gripped tightly enough to disarm it.
“The handshake between Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump the first time he went down to D.C. [after the 2016 U.S. election] were the most important 11 seconds in Trudeau’s first term as prime minister,” Dan Arnold, former pollster for the Trudeau admin, said half-jokingly on the Canadian political-insiders podcast,“On Background.”
The upshot: The PM bucked expectations, buffed up his public image as a fighter and visually cemented his legacy as a world leader who could hold his ground. The goodwill and favorable coverage would not last
5. Fully completely
It was a moment between two Canadian celebs that pulled at the heartstrings. Donning a denim jacket and jeans — a “Canadian tuxedo” — Canada’s first Gen X prime minister joined thousands of Tragically Hip fans in Kingston, Ontario, in August 2016 on the band’s final stop of its farewell tour.
A day before the tour was announced, the rock band’s frontman, Gord Downie, had gone public with his diagnosis of terminal brain cancer.
Shared moment: Trudeau described the band’s discography as “the soundtrack to my life and to so many of us in so many ways.”
When Downie in 2017 died at 53, Trudeau said Canada lost one of the best of us.
“Gord was my friend, but Gord was everyone’s friend,” he told the media on Oct. 18 that year, choking up.
The upshot: During the final concert, Downie called on Trudeau to make good on his reconciliation promise to Indigenous Canadians. And he said Trudeau was the leader to do it — both pressuring the prime minister to make good on his promises and offering an endorsement at the same time.
6. NAFTA renegotiations: Trudeau v. Trump
Trudeau and his posse are widely credited domestically for doing one thing very well: managing the first presidency of Donald Trump, who campaigned vowing to rip up NAFTA — the major free trade deal underpinning the Canadian economy.
The odds: While Trump was thundering to the Rust Belt about how unfair the deal with Canada was, the Trudeau administration was forging ties with his campaign. Trump’s win, which took official Ottawa by surprise, required all hands on deck.
The big test: Trudeau quickly remade his Cabinet, shuffling key positions in the upper ranks of government and tapping a dedicated U.S. tiger team to target people in Trump’s orbit. The goal was to have a pro-Canada donut of key players surrounding the president. The government put into play provincial politicians, including natural enemies of the Trudeau regime, and even former conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who had ties to old guard Republicans and to Trump.
Legacy moment: “When you read the history of the foreign policy of Justin Trudeau, the one bright spot will be his response to the Trump election and how he can come back,” former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson told POLITICO. “The negotiations worked out better than I would have thought, given how we went into it.”
“We really had to scramble.”
The upshot: Trudeau and his team defused the situation, which could have gone much worse for Canada.
7. The bizarre trip to India
Trudeau’s celebrity cred and familiarity with Canadians offered him slack to make mistakes, with semi-frequent verbal flubs. He had a penchant for remedying gaffes through tearful public apologies.
But in 2018 he really stepped in it during his first official visit to India at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.