Don Martin: Trudeau has a new retirement roadmap, now that Ardern's called it quits

When it comes to finding his exit ramp, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a new retirement roadmap.

On the far side of the planet a once-popular feminist prime minister, who battled violent Parliament-obstructing protests over pandemic policy, divided the population over its vaccination status, fought to green up resource industries and struggled with an economy inflating into recession, has called it quits just as an election year dawns with her polling numbers skidding downward.

That eerily familiar Trudeau-esque scenario marks the reign of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, which will end after five years in power.

But her resignation as of February 7 underscores a sharp contrast with Trudeau on one key point: Ardern knows she passed her best-before date and has departed before the electorate could issue a pink slip in the fall vote.

Trudeau, if the scripted whispers from the prime minister’s staff reflect his actual thinking, seems disinclined to follow her example and plans to fight for a fourth mandate to reach ten years in office.

This despite new polling numbers pegging the Liberals seven points below the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre with Liberal popularity about to be severely tested by a green industry transition plan featuring hefty job losses in an economy starting to lose steam.

This is where the Ardern model for strategic exits should rate attention from this prime minister.

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Elected as one of the youngest prime ministers in the country’s history, Ardern attracted global acclaim for her handling of the Christchurch mosque massacre, the fatalities fallout from a deadly volcanic eruption and some of the harshest pandemic lockdown measures in the world.

But the dazzle didn’t last long in her own country as voters wearied of their great communicator delivering a lesser record of accomplishment. With her popularity numbers reduced to mere-mortal levels, Ardern shocked her country in declaring herself burnt out and ready to move on with no heir apparent in sight.

Which brings us back to Trudeau, who seems slightly burnt out himself by showing little enthusiasm for the job beyond funding announcements while avoiding premiers not to his liking and keeping his own ministers and Liberal MPs at a distance.

This much and more was bluntly revealed by former finance minister Bill Morneau in his just-published account of ministerial life under Trudeau.

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Morneau has some brutal takes on Trudeau’s performance, portraying him a leadership lightweight who sacrifices serious management and fiscal restraint “at the altar of image and presentation” and opts for easy headlines over sound fiscal policy.

It’s a devastating pull-back-the-curtain view of this PMO and it amplifies the image of Trudeau as an all-hat-no-cattle force of only-personality, a perception which will haunt him into the next election.

Of course, armed with another two years of promised NDP support for his government, Trudeau has time for people to forget anything Morneau has revealed while he plots the best avenue to a lucrative political retirement.

But former Alberta cabinet minister Gary Mar makes a good point, using the hockey analogy of the ideal retirement being one where the player could’ve returned for another season to popular applause.

The risk for Trudeau is becoming another of the “many examples of politicians federally and provincially who have gone one too many elections and found themselves leaving not as a winner but as a loser,” Mar cautioned on CTV’s Power Play this week.

This is a risk Trudeau need not take.

With three elections won, Trudeau an above-average electoral record of victory. And while there’s still a path to re-election in the next few years, the road to an all-powerful majority mandate seems likely to dead end with, at best, another Liberal minority struggling to pass its agenda.

Ardern’s surprise resignation is the act of a smart politician crafting a legacy that ends with a winning streak.

Like Ardern, Trudeau’s early handling of the pandemic was a reassuring communications exercise where harsh isolation measures went down easier with a hefty helping of government support.

But like Ardern, his best days are arguably behind him.

Despite the scandalous size of the debt, the fires about to be ignited by resource job losses on the Prairies or those alarming PMO control freaks who block even the top minister from Trudeau, it’s still even-odds this prime minister could waltz into another term.

But Trudeau’s getting awfully close to his Ardern moment, that run-away-or-run-again point at which he can still bow out and leave his voters, his cabinet and his caucus clapping for more.

That’s the bottom line…