Mandryk: Trudeau resignation, prorogation leave the country in chaos

Article content

What shouldn’t be lost in the political euphoria flowing out of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation is the chaos he is leaving in his wake.

Not since former Saskatchewan Progressive Conservative premier Grant Devine adjourned this province’s legislature in 1991 — without passing a budget to deal with a crippling debt crisis — has a governing leader in this country left his jurisdiction in such a mess.

Article content

One can only anticipate the same results for the federal Liberals as Devine experienced in his record loss to the NDP. But that inevitable outcome now seems secondary to the potential catastrophe being played out — something even Trudeau acknowledged in his resignation address on Monday.

“We are at a critical moment in the world,” Trudeau said. “My friends, as you know, I am a fighter.”

The incongruence of these two sentences is rather mind boggling. However, at least the first part is true: Both domestically and internationally, the prime minister’s resignation comes at a critical moment in the world.

The international crisis for Canadians truly begins with whatever flows out of the inauguration of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump later this month.

It’s likely to spell an attack on our trade with the threatened 25 per cent tariffs. And if Trump’s supposed joking rhetoric is to be taken seriously, it may spell an attack on our very sovereignty.

Within two hours of Trudeau’s announcement, Trump was posting on social media that this is a good day for Canadians who look forward to becoming the 51st state, which would avoid U.S. tariffs altogether and protect them from Russian and Chinese patrols in Canadian waters.

Article content

Article content

While many will take the U.S. president-elect’s ramblings with a grain of salt, the Canadian prime minister cannot be afforded that luxury. Or at least, the prime minister should understand the gravity of the situation.

If Trudeau is the fighter he purports to be, should he not stick around for these important fights? Evidently not.

“Despite the best efforts to work through it, Parliament has been paralyzed for months,” Trudeau said.

“This country deserves a real choice and if I am continuing to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best choice in the next election.”

One gets that Trudeau has likely finally come to terms with the political hopelessness of his situation … although his previous obliviousness to his growing crisis is another bizarre chapter in recent Canadian politics.

After years of horrific polling and byelections in long-held Liberal seats, it still took the December resignation of former finance minister Chrystia Freeland on the day when she was supposed to present the update for the 2024-25 federal budget. (Ironically, it was a ministerial resignation and a threatened caucus uprising that caused Devine to walk away from the the 1991 legislature without passing a budget.)

Article content

Arguably, the current situation in Ottawa is worse: A lame duck prime minister and Liberal government, and no hope of passing or likely even presenting a spring budget in the face of a financial crisis. This now stands as Trudeau’s legacy.

Time may prove kinder. Perhaps this crisis will sort itself out. Perhaps time may allow us to forget the daily upheaval of the Trudeau administration, as we seem to have with the once-reviled Brian Mulroney.

“I think the guy is going to have a positive legacy,” said Saskatoon Liberal Doug Richardson, a former chief of staff to prime minister John Turner. “He changed the face of middle-class Canada.”

Trudeau’s legacy will include child tax credits, $10-a-day daycare, legalizing cannabis and — such as it was — a climate change plan.

And, as Richardson noted, the Trudeau government built a pipeline in the west and provided great things to Saskatchewan, like solid funding for the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) and other initiatives at the University of Saskatchewan.

But as it stands right now, Trudeau’s legacy is walking away from chaos — much of which he created. It will be difficult to escape that.

Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

Our websites are your destination for up-to-the-minute Saskatchewan news, so make sure to bookmark thestarphoenix.com and leaderpost.com. For Regina Leader-Post newsletters click here; for Saskatoon StarPhoenix newsletters click here

Article content