Tom Mulcair: Grading Trudeau's performance in 2024, and what's ahead for him in the new year

A lot has been written and said about Chrystia Freeland’s resignation the week before Christmas. Her bombshell letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be part of Canadian political lore for years to come.

I don’t think it was a revelation to Freeland or anyone else that Trudeau likes political gimmicks. It’s that very showman-like approach to political life that contrasted so sharply with the serious Stephen Harper, and it helped Trudeau win his only majority.

Stunts—from bhangra dancing in India to showing off his yoga poses—have all been part of the Trudeau brand from the get go. And it’s worked; until it didn’t.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with Indian movie star Aamir Khan (not pictured) in Mumbai, India on Feb. 20, 2018 (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)

Freeland has had a front row seat through it all. She knew the gimmicky side to Trudeau better than anyone else. What she had underestimated was his bloody-mindedness in dealing with his closest colleagues.

Bill Morneau and Jody Wilson-Raynould had written about it. When Wilson-Raybould quit, Freeland went after her for not being a team player. That doesn’t mean that Freeland wasn’t paying attention to what Trudeau was about; she is, if nothing else, studious.

So when Trudeau offered her an empty minister’s portfolio with no budget and no real role, she jumped from the campaign plane and deployed a virtuous parachute to prepare a soft landing. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake as Wilson-Raybould, who’d accepted veterans affairs before finally leaving herself.

In this file photo, then minister of foreign affairs Chrystia Freeland looks on as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responds to a question during a panel discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Sept. 25, 2018 (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld)

Freeland was also not going to be conned by Trudeau; she knew that part of him too well. Her departure actually helps her political aspirations to replace him and allows her to present a version that sees her at odds with the prime minister with whom she’s been in lockstep for years. Quite a coup.

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Trudeau is about to enter the final year of his mandate and, quite possibly, of his political career.

His departure before the next election seems likely and if he persists, voters appear to have already made up their minds about his future.

It’s a good moment to take a snapshot of his leadership balance sheet as a way of understanding how he got to where he is in the polls.

Economy

Assets

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a daycare centre in Dartmouth, N.S. on April 2, 2024 (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Kelly Clark)

Trudeau has never hesitated to spend for social programs. In fact, it’s what he promised to do when he first got elected.

In large part owing to his deal with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, Trudeau has enhanced Canada’s social safety net considerably.

He’s added unprecedented programs in pharmacare and dental care, but it’s his childcare program that will have the greatest long-term benefit for the economy.

It’s commonplace for leaders to call expenses ‘investments in the future,’ but that choice of words has never been more appropriate than in the case of the federal government’s huge investment in childcare.

The economy grows and women benefit when they can enter, and stay in the workplace thanks to quality, affordable childcare. That is also a proposal that the NDP championed first and foremost, but Trudeau made it a reality.

Liabilities

During his tenure, Trudeau managed to literally double the federal debt compared to what it was before he came to power. Between 2015 and 2024, he has put as much debt on the backs of future generations as all previous prime ministers combined since 1867.

It is his Achilles heel, and even though he can blame a good chunk of it on pandemic spending, he’d already overspent to the tune of $100 billion prior to COVID-19.

Generally speaking, the average Canadian doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about billions in deficit spending. The big numbers get lost. But they do care about whether a government sticks to its plan.

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The Trudeau-Freeland tandem has been unable to adhere to its own promises on deficit spending and at a time when everyone else is belt-tightening, Canadians notice, and they take offence.

Trudeau’s increase in the size of the federal civil service with a simultaneous addition of billions of dollars in outside contracts is the most obvious demonstration of his lack of management skills.

Canadians know things are worse, not better, in Ottawa’s massive bureaucracy. They also know they’re paying twice, once for government employees, another for the private companies to do the work.

In terms of basic public administration, emperor Trudeau has no clothes.

Immigration

Assets

Canada was built by immigration. Unless your ancestors are First Nations, Inuit or Métis, your family has its roots outside this great country of ours.

As a result, most Canadians have always appreciated immigration and immigrants.

The increase in economic activity after the pandemic was possible thanks to larger than usual numbers of temporary immigrants. Tighter Canadian university budgets were eased by huge cohorts of international students. There have been many upsides.

Liabilities

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks about new housing solutions at the CCAT training centre in Woodbridge, Ont., on April 12, 2024 (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette)

For the first time in our history, owing to massive immigration without planning, many Canadians have begun to sour on that essential part of our national foundation.

It’s not being anti-immigrantion to note that this lack of foresight and preparation has challenged availability and delivery of health and educational services.

The biggest problem, of course, has been lack of housing.

Younger Canadians are putting the blame squarely on Trudeau’s Liberals and have navigated over to Poilievre’s Conservatives in droves.

The post-pandemic inflation bump and lack of housing has also meant that, in addition to those suffering from problems of addiction or mental health, there's a newer category of unhoused people: the recently retired with low fixed incomes.

They can’t afford housing as prices have skyrocketed due to lack of supply. The face of homelessness has changed and none of the recent Liberal announcements will improve that situation before the next federal election. It's an unforgivable situation in a country that is so prosperous, with lots of available space.

Trudeau will pay a heavy price for his signature lack of planning and administrative skills in this crucial area.

It’s not as if this was all some accident. Trudeau had bought into a theory, without public consultation, that Canada should have a population of 100 million by the end of the century.

That sort of tectonic shift in a country’s future can’t be made simply because a prime minister likes an idea floated by his friends in a think tank.

It requires a concerted effort to have buy-in from all spheres of our society and, more importantly, a plan. Trudeau didn’t consult, doesn’t know how to plan and the result has been an economic and social disaster. He’s tried to apply the brakes on everything from student visas to foreign workers, but the tailspin he started through reckless driving will end in a ditch.

Environment

Assets

Trudeau has several ministers, starting with Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and including Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, who know the sustainable development file better than anyone in politics.

Guilbeault, in particular, has been very effective in international forums. He’s well-liked abroad but his picture is on every dartboard in Alberta.

Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault in Ottawa on Nov. 4, 2024. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)

There’s no small irony in the fact that Premier Danielle Smith has taken innumerable personal shots against Guilbeault. The very fact that the petroleum premier is railing against him gives him a certain cred with environmentalists.

In short, Trudeau has ministers who can talk a good game and keep some environmentally-conscious Canadians onside, even if the results aren’t there.

Liabilities

The problem of course is that for Trudeau, the environment has always been little more than another occasion for virtue signalling. There has been little substance since he was first elected.

In report after report, both Commissioners of the Environment and Sustainable Development who have served during Trudeau’s watch have called out the federal government for failing to meet its targets and its international obligations.

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Guilbeault even agreed with the cabinet decision to approve the massive Bay du Nord offshore oil project and his rationalisation was a howler: it was going to be carbon neutral.

How, you may ask, can a massive fossil fuel extraction project be carbon neutral? Well, the answer, according to Trudeau’s Liberals, is that you only look at the GHGs produced by the project, not by the petroleum. You see, to them, as long as the oil gets burned somewhere else on the planet, it’s not on Canada’s balance sheet. What ratiocination and hypocrisy.

International relations

Assets

Canada’s number one asset in international relations is -- Canada.

What I mean is that our amazing middle power of a country benefits from an almost inexplicable aura that gets us lots of fans worldwide.

Our society is, in many ways, very similar to the United States. We may walk and talk like Americans; but we’re not Americans.

Having attended international meetings of all kinds for decades I can fairly report that Canada and Canadians are, generally, well-liked around the world.

We tend to be progressive and say the right things and, of course, our current leader wears cool socks. Trudeau was a total rock star on international trips at the beginning of his time as prime minister. I can remember a Beatles-like mob scene around him in the Philippines.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shakes hands with people as he walks through the lobby of a building in downtown Manila, Philippines on Nov. 13, 2017 (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld)

Liabilities

Unfortunately the Trudeau charm has worn off in the past couple of years as we began open fights with the two most populous countries in the world.

Trudeau personally initiated battles with China and India over, respectively, alleged electoral interference and violent political skullduggery.

Those two cases have something in common: Trudeau's insatiable desire for attention.

In the case of China, it was at a G-20 meeting in Bali that Trudeau strutted up to Chinese president Xi and began to harangue him, out of earshot. His staff proudly told us about their exchange, boasting that Trudeau had been giving Xi an earful about electoral interference in Canada.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping after taking part in the closing session at the G20 Leaders Summit in Bali, Indonesia on Nov. 16, 2022 (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)

As the Chinese president soon told him, at a second encounter, you don’t get to repeat what is supposed to be a private exchange. That’s the opposite of diplomacy, despite the fact that the subject was and remains very serious, Trudeau looked like a rank amateur. A tyro on the world stage.

It’s worth noting that things soon unravelled for Trudeau on everything to do with China, including the Trudeau Foundation and news about sketchy gifts from influential Chinese sources, apparently looking to curry favour. He was trying to look tough to avoid looking weak for past dealings and it backfired terribly, with lasting repercussions for our relations with China, one of the world’s most important economies.

But Trudeau’s worst performance was the opening of a parliamentary session with a bombshell claim about Indian government involvement in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil. The accusation couldn’t have been more grave and indeed it appears that it was true.

That wasn’t the problem. The issue was that Trudeau had clearly used that massive bullhorn of the opening of parliament as a way to distract from his rapidly failing political fortunes and everyone who observed it, knew it.

Trudeau had, once again, for his own purposes, chosen to go completely outside the normal rules of diplomacy and in so doing, brought on the wrath of a major country that we want as our key Indo-Pacific trading partner.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau takes part in a bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the G20 Summit in New Delhi, India on Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023 (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

The Americans had to deal with similar bad behaviours by Indian agents on their soil. They handled it, as is their wont, decisively and quickly, but there was no showboating or gloating. Just law enforcement and diplomacy.

Two other major gaffes had to do with what biographer Stephen Maher called Trudeau’s propensity for “pious scolding.”

In the first case, Canada delivered a tough statement against Saudi Arabia on the subject of human rights. The Saudi reaction was fast and furious and Trudeau was once again shown to be a kid in short pants who loves to posture but doesn’t understand the consequences.

A similar lecturing by Trudeau, directed at Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni on LGBTQ issues, led to another international spat entirely of Trudeau’s making. The fact is, Trudeau was hopelessly misinformed but was, once again, performing for the audience back home.

He had to climb down from his high horse but not before he’d needlessly hurt Canada’s reputation with fellow G-7 member Italy (one Italian newspaper called Trudeau a buffoon on its front page above a picture of Trudeau in black face).

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The worst example of Trudeau’s incoherent behaviour in international relations has been his dealing with the current situation in the Middle East. His incomprehensible stand on the South African accusation of genocide against Israel has baffled that country and the Jewish community here in Canada.

It has as much to do with Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly’s personal, political ambitions as anything else and Trudeau has shown a singular lack of clarity and historical understanding.

The curtain falls

Trudeau can remain master of his own fate for a little while longer. He’s already stalled indecently long, lessening the chances of any potential successor to help the Liberals rise from the ashes.

In a strange part of a recent speech on feminism, Trudeau decided to lament the fact that Kamala Harris wasn’t the president of the United States. Premiers were aghast, but there may have been a method to Trudeau’s madness.

In his remarks, Trudeau talked about progress on women’s rights and the importance of women leaders in politics.

Could it be that Trudeau was staking out some turf in the eventual race to replace him?

It’s worth bearing in mind that among the five parties present in the House of Commons (Liberals, Conservatives, Bloc, NDP and Greens) only the Liberals have never had a woman leader. In fact, Trudeau defeated four quality female candidates when he won the leadership, perpetuating an unbroken string of male leaders for his party.

Trudeau continues to describe himself as a feminist. Could his final act, before it's curtains for him, be to endorse openly Mélanie Joly, Anita Anand or Christie Clark for the top job?

Stay tuned in the New Year and have a great holiday with family and friends.

Tom Mulcair was the leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada between 2012 and 2017