Justin Trudeau

• 1. Introduction

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  Justin Trudeau was not yet four months old when a visiting American president raised a glass to him. At a gala in Ottawa in April 1972, Richard Nixon toasted the future prime minister of Canada, naming the baby as Justin Pierre Trudeau. The baby's father, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, replied that he hoped his son would one day have the grace and skill of the president. Earlier that day, First Lady Pat Nixon had visited the nursery and left a stuffed Snoopy.

  The toast proved prophetic. Trudeau was born on the 25th of December 1971. From 2015 to 2025 he served as the 23rd prime minister of Canada. He was the first to be the child of a previous one.

  How does a child raised under that kind of expectation become a teacher, an actor, a boxer and a head of government? What did he promise, and what did he deliver? And why did a leader who won three elections announce his own departure in January 2025?

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• 2. Raised in Public

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  Only one child had been born to a sitting Canadian prime minister before him: Margaret Mary Theodora Macdonald, daughter of John A. Macdonald, born in 1869. Justin Trudeau arrived at 9:27 pm at the Ottawa Civic Hospital, six months after the Prime Minister's Office announced his mother's pregnancy. His brother Alexandre, known as Sacha, was born on Christmas Day two years later. Michel followed in October 1975. Both were the third and fourth children born to a prime minister in office. His baptism at Notre Dame Basilica on the 16th of January 1972 was his first public appearance. His godparents were his father's niece Anne Rouleau-Danis and his mother's brother-in-law Thomas Walker.

  His family tree reaches well beyond Quebec. One grandfather, James Sinclair, was born in Scotland and served as fisheries minister under Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent. The other was the businessman Charles-Émile Trudeau. A maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Bernard, was born in Makassar, Indonesia, and moved to Penticton, British Columbia, in 1906 at the age of 15. Through that family line, Trudeau is a fifth great-grandson of Major-General William Farquhar, a leader in the founding of modern Singapore.

  In 1977, when Justin was five, his parents announced their separation, and his father took primary custody. Rumours of a reconciliation circulated for years. Instead his mother filed for a no-fault divorce, which the Supreme Court of Ontario granted in 1984. His father had announced his retirement a month earlier. The parents eventually settled into a friendly joint-custody arrangement. In October 1979 his nanny, Dianne Lavergne, called him a mommy's boy but said the brothers were lucky children whose hurts mend quickly. Looking back in 2009, Trudeau said his parents had loved each other "incredibly, passionately, completely." He added that thirty years separated them. His mother, he said, was never an equal partner in his father's life of duty and country. He also has three half-siblings. Kyle and Alicia come from his mother's remarriage to Fried Kemper, and Sarah comes from his father's relationship with Deborah Coyne.

  Until the 1979 federal election, home was 24 Sussex Drive, the prime minister's official residence. When his father's government fell, the family expected to move into Stornoway, the residence of the Official Opposition leader. Flooding in its basement spoiled that plan. Prime Minister Joe Clark offered Harrington Lake, the country retreat in Gatineau Park, but the repairs dragged on. Pierre Trudeau took his sons on a long holiday at the Nova Scotia summer home of his friend Don Johnston. He then sent the boys to their maternal grandparents in North Vancouver for the rest of the summer. By autumn they were living on the top floor of Stornoway while workers fixed the bottom. In September his mother bought a house at 95 Victoria Street in the New Edinburgh neighbourhood. The boys returned to the official residence after the February 1980 election put their father back in office.

  School followed a path his mother chose. His father had wanted a French-language lycée, but she persuaded him that public school mattered. In 1976 Justin entered the French immersion program at Rockcliffe Park Public School, which she had attended for two years as a girl. A limousine was available, yet his parents chose the school bus, with a Royal Canadian Mounted Police car trailing behind. After his father retired in June 1984, the rest of the family moved to his father's Montreal home, Cormier House, at 1418 Pine Avenue. That autumn Justin entered Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, his father's old school. It had begun as a Jesuit institution but was non-denominational by then.

  Summers meant Camp Ahmek on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Provincial Park, where he later held his first paid job as a counsellor. In 2008 he named camping with his father as his favourite family outing. There, he said, his father could be "a dad in the woods."

  Money arrived early too. His father gave him and his brothers shares in two numbered companies. One held a securities portfolio paying dividends of up to $20,000 a year. The other collected about $10,000 a year in royalties from their father's autobiography and other sources. By August 2011 the first company held assets of $1.2 million. The brothers also received a country estate of about 50 hectares in the Laurentians, with a house designed by the architect Arthur Erickson. That land was valued at $2.7 million in 2016.

  At McGill University, Trudeau would meet the man who later became his principal secretary.

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• 3. Classroom, Grief, Cause

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  Gerald Butts met Trudeau in their first year at McGill through a mutual friend, Jonathan Ablett, and invited him to join the McGill Debating Union. The two bonded during the drive back to Montreal from a tournament at Princeton University. Trudeau finished a literature degree in 1994. In 1998 he earned a Bachelor of Education from the University of British Columbia.

  He stayed in Vancouver and taught. He worked as a substitute at schools such as Killarney Secondary. He also taught French and math permanently at the private West Point Grey Academy. He shared a residence called Douglas Lodge with a fellow teacher, Christopher Ingvaldson. Later, from 2002 to 2004, he studied engineering at the École Polytechnique de Montréal but did not graduate. A master's degree in environmental geography at McGill ended when he withdrew to seek public office.

  On the 13th of November 1998, his youngest brother Michel died in an avalanche during a ski trip. Two years later Trudeau and his family started the Kokanee Glacier Alpine Campaign for winter sports safety. In 2002 he criticized British Columbia's decision to stop funding a public avalanche warning system. In August 2000 he had attended the Kokanee Summit in Creston, British Columbia, a fundraiser honouring Michel and other avalanche victims. Afterward an unsigned editorial in a local paper, the Creston Valley Advance, accused him of groping a female reporter. The editorial said he gave a day-late apology. When asked in 2018, Trudeau said he did not remember any negative incidents from that time. Some called his answer hypocritical, while others called the story a witch hunt or a non-story.

  The loss also reshaped his faith. He had become a lapsed Catholic at 18, feeling that the formality of church did not speak to his daily life. After Michel's death, a friend persuaded him to take an Alpha course, and his faith returned. In 2011 he called it an extremely important part of who he is.

  His father died on the 8th of September 2000. A month later, at the age of 28, Trudeau delivered a eulogy at the state funeral that turned him into a public figure. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation received numerous calls asking it to broadcast the speech again. The Quebec politician Claude Ryan called it "perhaps... the first manifestation of a dynasty." A CBC book in 2003 listed the speech among significant Canadian events of the previous fifty years.

  Causes filled the years that followed. From 2002 to 2006 he chaired Katimavik, the youth program begun by the family friend Jacques Hébert. In 2002-03 he sat on the CBC Radio series Canada Reads, where he championed The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston. In April 2004 he and Alexandre opened the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto. It later joined the Munk School of Global Affairs. In 2005 he fought a proposed $100-million zinc mine. He said it would poison the Nahanni River, a United Nations World Heritage Site in the Northwest Territories. "I'm not saying mining is wrong... but that is not the place for it," he said. In 2006 he hosted the Giller Prize ceremony for literature. On the 17th of September 2006 he emceed a Toronto rally organized by Roméo Dallaire. It urged Canadian involvement in resolving the Darfur crisis.

  In 2007 he took a role on screen in The Great War, a two-part CBC miniseries about Canada in the First World War. He played his fifth cousin, twice removed, Major Talbot Mercer Papineau, who was killed at Passchendaele on the 30th of October 1917.

  His personal life took shape in the same years. Sophie Grégoire had been a childhood classmate of Michel in Montreal. In June 2003 they reconnected when she, by then a Quebec television personality, was assigned as his co-host for a charity ball. They began dating several months later and became engaged in October 2004. They married on the 28th of May 2005 at Sainte-Madeleine d'Outremont Church in Montreal. They have three children: Xavier, Ella-Grace and Hadrien. Politics was already calling. In 2003 he had co-hosted a tribute to outgoing prime minister Jean Chrétien at the Liberal leadership convention, alongside the Olympian Charmaine Crooks.

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• 4. The Reluctant Heir

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  In 1988, Trudeau offered his support to Liberal leader John Turner during the federal election. Two years later he defended Canadian federalism at a student event at Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf. By October 2006 he was attacking political nationalism. He called it an "old idea from the 19th century" that was "based on a smallness of thought." Many heard the remark as a jab at Michael Ignatieff, then a leadership candidate promoting recognition of Quebec as a nation. Trudeau later wrote a public letter calling the idea of Quebec nationhood "against everything my father ever believed."

  That year the Liberals lost the federal election, and he was appointed to chair the party's task force on youth renewal. At the leadership convention he backed Gerard Kennedy. When Kennedy fell off after the second ballot, Trudeau joined him in supporting the winner, Stéphane Dion.

  In early 2007 rumours placed Trudeau in a by-election in the Montreal riding of Outremont. La Presse reported that Dion wanted that seat for a star candidate. Trudeau turned instead to nearby Papineau. André Ouellet, a senior minister under Trudeau's father, had held it for 26 years. The Liberals had kept it for 53 years before losing it to the Bloc Québécois in 2006. On the 29th of April 2007 Trudeau won the nomination with 690 votes. Mary Deros, a Montreal city councillor, had 350, and Basilio Giordano, publisher of a local Italian-language newspaper, had 220.

  In the election of the 14th of October 2008, he narrowly defeated the Bloc incumbent, Vivian Barbot. Edward Greenspon, editor-in-chief of The Globe and Mail, predicted that Trudeau would be watched as a possible future prime minister. Most rookie MPs were not. His first legislative act was a motion. It called for a "national voluntary service policy for young people." In October 2009 he became the party's critic for multiculturalism and youth. In September 2010 he moved to youth, citizenship and immigration, where he argued that a bill against human smuggling would punish its victims.

  Not every headline was flattering. Trudeau drew controversy when it emerged that he had earned $1.3 million in speaking fees from charities and school boards. Of that, $277,000 came after he became an MP. He pushed for greater relief after the 2010 Haiti earthquake and easier immigration for Haitians, a community with a large presence in his riding.

  In 2011 he won Papineau again, but the Liberals fell to third place with only thirty-four seats. Ignatieff resigned, and speculation turned to Trudeau. He said that "because of the history packaged into my name, a lot of people are turning to me in a way that... to be blunt, concerns me." Bob Rae became interim leader and named Trudeau critic for post-secondary education, youth and amateur sport.

  Then came a fight. Trudeau wanted to box in a charity match for the cancer research event Fight for the Cure but could not find a Conservative opponent. Senator Patrick Brazeau accepted after the pair's mutual hairdresser, Stefania Capovilla, asked on Trudeau's behalf. On the 31st of March 2012, the fight took place at the Hampton Inn in Ottawa. Sun News broadcast it live, with Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley commentating. Trudeau won in the third round, which was widely seen as an upset.

  Polls had already shown that Trudeau as leader could lift the party from a distant third place. Yet months after the election, on the 12th of October, at Wilfrid Laurier University, he announced he would not run, citing his young family. When Rae also declined in June 2012, Trudeau was hit by what was described as a tsunami of calls to reconsider. In July he said he would think again. On the 2nd of October 2012 he launched his bid at a Montreal rally.

  His inner circle was made up of friends in their thirties and forties. Gerald Butts, a former president of WWF-Canada who had been principal secretary to Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty, was senior advisor. Katie Telford managed the campaign, with Mike McNeir and Robert Asselin on policy. Alexandre paused his documentary work to join them. Critics said Trudeau spoke little on policy as an MP, and that his celebrity might scare off strong rivals.

  Midway through, an old remark resurfaced. In a 2010 interview with Télé-Québec he had said Canada was not doing well because Albertans controlled its socio-democratic agenda. Sun Media reported it a week before a by-election in Calgary Centre on the 26th of November 2012. Trudeau apologized the next day, saying he was wrong to use "Alberta" as shorthand for Stephen Harper's government. The Conservatives held the seat by under 1,200 votes. Liberal candidate Harvey Locke said Trudeau's words had not changed the outcome.

  Rivals pressed him on substance. Marc Garneau demanded detailed policies and a one-on-one debate. He argued that anyone unable to defend his ideas against him could not do so against Harper. Joyce Murray, the only candidate strongly backing proportional representation, challenged Trudeau over his preference for a preferential ballot. On the 13th of March 2013, Garneau withdrew, saying his own polling showed he could not beat Trudeau. On the 14th of April 2013 Trudeau was declared winner with 80.1% of 30,800 votes. Murray took 10.2% and Martha Hall Findlay 5.7%. He lost only five ridings, all to Murray and all in British Columbia.

  Early decisions mattered. At Nelson Mandela's funeral he gave up his seat to Irwin Cotler, in deference to Cotler's work with Mandela against apartheid. He had pledged to put all his assets except real estate into a blind trust, unusual for an opposition leader. Documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen show BMO Private Banking set it up in July 2013. That June, he and his wife sold their Côte-des-Neiges home and rented in Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa, near where he lived as a child. On the 18th of August 2014 an intruder entered the house while Grégoire and the children slept and left a threatening note. Nothing was stolen. Trudeau was in Winnipeg at the time.

  A week before the 2014 party convention he released an internet video called "An economy that benefits us all." In it he said Canada's debt-to-GDP ratios had come down. Now, he said, it was time for Ottawa to "step up."

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• 5. Sunny Ways and Policy

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  On the 19th of October 2015, after the longest official campaign in more than a century, the Liberals won 184 of 338 seats. They took 39.5% of the vote. That was a gain of 150 seats, the largest numerical increase for any party since Confederation. It was also the first time a party had climbed from third place in the Commons to a majority. They swept Atlantic Canada and Toronto and took 40 seats in Quebec, the most there since his father's near-sweep in 1980. Aged 43, Trudeau became the second-youngest prime minister in Canadian history, after Joe Clark.

  His victory speech invoked Wilfrid Laurier's "sunny ways," a call to unite Canadians despite their differences. Trudeau said Laurier "knew that politics can be a positive force, and that's the message Canadians have sent today." Stephen Harper announced that same night that he was resigning as Conservative leader. Observers credited Trudeau's campaign performance and the televised debates, where he beat the low expectations set by Conservative advertising.

  Governor General David Johnston swore in Trudeau and his cabinet on the 4th of November 2015. His first legislative priority was lower taxes for middle-income Canadians and higher taxes on the top 1%. He also promised to rebuild relations with Indigenous peoples and to run an open, ethical government.

  On spending, his government relied at first on higher tax revenue to fund more programs. It never balanced the budget, but the debt-to-GDP ratio fell every year until 2020. He called his social policy progressive and feminist. It included strong advocacy for abortion rights, and his government introduced the bill that outlawed conversion therapy. Canada introduced medically assisted dying in 2016 and legalized recreational cannabis in 2018. In 2021 Trudeau announced a national child care plan to cut fees to $10 a day per child within five years.

  On the environment, the government set a target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 30% before 2030 and reaching net zero by 2050. Its main tool was federal carbon pricing. Parliament also passed laws on marine conservation, banned six common single-use plastic products and tightened environmental impact assessments. Yet Trudeau still favoured oil and gas pipelines to carry Canadian fossil fuels to foreign markets.

  Immigration became the policy that cut deepest. Before the 2015 vote he promised to accept 50,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq by the end of 2016. In 2016 his advisors urged a sharp rise in immigration to stimulate the economy. Despite warnings about housing and services, targets rose every year. By 2022 and 2023, almost 1 million newcomers, permanent and temporary, were arriving annually. In November 2022 the government announced a goal of 500,000 immigrants a year by 2025.

  Housing costs climbed anyway. The government banned foreign buyers and created the Housing Accelerator Fund. Even so, in a May 2024 interview Trudeau said that "housing needs to retain its value." Amid cost-of-living pressure, he announced immigration cuts in October 2024 by video message. His approval rating, which stood at 65% in 2016, had sunk to 22% by December 2024. Food bank use had also reached a record high.

  In the courts, Trudeau chose seven jurists for the Supreme Court of Canada, including Richard Wagner as chief justice. The others were Malcolm Rowe, Sheilah Martin, Nicholas Kasirer, Mahmud Jamal, Michelle O'Bonsawin and Mary Moreau. His appointments included the first visible minority and the first Indigenous Canadian on the court.

  He also launched three major independent investigations. The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women found that Canada's response amounted to genocide, a finding he said he accepted. A joint federal and provincial commission examined the 2020 attacks in Nova Scotia. The third, the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, also covers interference from states other than China that Canada considers hostile.

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• 6. Abroad and Under Pressure

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  In 2015 Trudeau told the New York Times Magazine that Canada could be the "first postnational state." His early relations with President Barack Obama were warm, even though Obama rejected the Keystone Pipeline that Trudeau supported. His first foreign policy tests were pulling Canadian air support out of the Syrian civil war and welcoming Syrian refugees.

  In January 2017 he posted a message on Twitter promising that Canadians would welcome people fleeing persecution, terror and war. It ended with "Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada." Irregular border crossings rose, mainly at Roxham Road. Strain on services in Quebec and Ontario led to that crossing's closure in March 2023. Once it closed, asylum claims surged at airports instead.

  A visa decision showed the same pattern. In 2016 Trudeau lifted visa requirements for Mexican citizens. Asylum claims by Mexicans grew from 110 in 2015 to 24,000 in 2023, and visas and some restrictions returned in 2024.

  When Donald Trump became president in 2017, relations cooled. The Trump administration forced NAFTA to be renegotiated into the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement. Canada made major concessions, allowing more American milk and weakening its dairy supply management system. When Trump placed tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, Trudeau answered with tariffs on American steel, aluminum and other goods.

  China was a harder problem. In December 2018, Meng Wanzhou was arrested at Vancouver International Airport at the request of the United States. Twelve days later, China arrested Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig. Trudeau named Dominic Barton ambassador to China in 2019, and Barton negotiated the release of the two men while trade reached historic highs. Meng, Spavor and Kovrig were all freed at the same time in September 2021. Many observers suspected a deal between the United States and China. Trudeau greeted the two men at the airport. In 2024 Spavor received $7 million in compensation for his detention. It was later reported that Spavor had unwittingly shared information on North Korea with Kovrig, who passed it to the Canadian government.

  Saudi Arabia strained ties too. In 2018 it recalled its ambassador and froze trade after Canada called for the release of the blogger Raif Badawi. In 2019 Canada nonetheless doubled its weapons sales to the kingdom, despite a moratorium on export permits following the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. In 2020 Canada lost its bid for a United Nations Security Council seat, the second failed attempt after 2009.

  In September 2023, Trudeau said Canada had "credible intelligence" tying India's government to a killing. The victim, a Canadian citizen named Hardeep Singh Nijjar, died outside a Sikh gurdwara in Surrey. The accusation set off a diplomatic row between Canada and India.

  Questions of interference also reached Canadian elections. In 2022 and 2023, media reported that China had tried to interfere in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. Trudeau rejected a full public inquiry at first and asked former Governor General David Johnston to investigate. In May 2023 Johnston warned that China's meddling endangered Canadian democracy. After he resigned on the 9th of June, Trudeau commissioned Quebec justice Marie-Josée Hogue to lead the public inquiry. Her preliminary report in May 2024 found that China interfered in both elections but did not change either result.

  On Ukraine, the government imposed sanctions on Russia after the 2022 invasion and authorized humanitarian and military aid. Trudeau received the Order of Liberty from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the 23rd of August 2024. A bruising episode came earlier, on the 22nd of September 2023. Speaker Anthony Rota invited Yaroslav Hunka, a Ukrainian Canadian who had fought in the SS Division Galicia of the Waffen-SS, to the House of Commons. Hunka received two standing ovations from all members, including Trudeau, other party leaders and visiting President Zelenskyy. The incident was seen as a blunder and a scandal, and the Russian establishment used it to bolster its justifications for the invasion. Trudeau said it was "a mistake that deeply embarrassed parliament and Canada" and apologized to Zelenskyy.

  After the October 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Trudeau condemned it and backed Israel's right to self-defence. He rejected calls for a ceasefire but supported "humanitarian pauses." In December, in a joint statement with the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand, he called for a "sustainable ceasefire."

  When Trump returned to office in January 2025, ties soured again. On the 4th of March 2025 Trump imposed 25% tariffs on Canadian exports and 10% on energy products. Trudeau announced 25% tariffs on $30 billion worth of American goods starting the next day. Those were due to grow to $155 billion within 21 days and stay until the American measures were withdrawn.

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• 7. Minority Governments, Major Crises

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  On the 11th of September 2019, Trudeau asked Governor General Julie Payette to dissolve Parliament, starting an election. He announced he would join only three leaders' debates, two run by the Leaders' Debates Commission and one by TVA. At other debates he was represented by an empty podium. The Liberals dropped from 177 seats at dissolution to 157 but still won more than any other party, enough to govern in a minority. They won 33.1% of the popular vote, while Andrew Scheer's Conservatives won 34.4%. It was the first time since 1979 that the party with the most votes did not win the most seats.

  In 2020 the pandemic found Canada short of protective equipment, because Trudeau's government had cut stockpile funding in earlier years. The government's response included funds for the provinces and territories, travel restrictions, screening of international flights and self-isolation orders under the Quarantine Act. In March it launched the Canada Emergency Response Benefit. It also waived student loan payments, boosted the Canada Child Benefit and doubled a Goods and Services Tax payment. April brought the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, the Canada Emergency Business Account and the Canada Emergency Student Benefit. Under Operation LASER, the Canadian Forces went into long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario.

  Vaccines were a federal job. On the 12th of May 2020 the government announced an exclusive deal with CanSino Biologics, but worsening Canadian-Chinese relations sank it. On the 5th of August 2020 it laid out a plan to secure Pfizer and Moderna doses. Mass vaccination began in December 2020. A second wave struck in the fall of 2020 and a worse third wave in the spring of 2021. Trudeau repeatedly extended the aid programs. The 2021 budget projected a $354.2-billion deficit for 2020-21. The emergency benefit ended on the 26th of September 2021, and the Canada Recovery Benefit ran until the 23rd of October. The Canada Worker Lockdown Benefit replaced it and grew during the Omicron wave in December 2021.

  On the 15th of August 2021, Trudeau asked Governor General Mary Simon to dissolve Parliament for an election on the 20th of September. The call came on the same day as the fall of Kabul. In the first two weeks, critics said he was too slow to evacuate Canadians and Afghans who had supported Canada's mission. The Liberals wanted a majority to govern alone. They won 160 seats and a second minority government. With 32.6% of the vote, behind the Conservatives, they recorded the lowest share ever for a governing party in Canada.

  On the 15th of January 2022, vaccine requirements began for truckers re-entering Canada by land. Convoys set out along routes across the provinces and converged on Ottawa. On the 29th of January, the first day of protest at Parliament Hill, Trudeau moved to an undisclosed location. The Guardian described the demonstration as a gathering of antigovernment grievances aimed especially at him. On the 31st he called the protests an "insult to truth." On the 3rd of February he said a military response was "not in the cards right now."

  By the 11th of February, protesters had forcefully blocked the Ambassador Bridge, the continent's busiest land border crossing. Reuters reported that Trudeau promised the United States "quick action." He then spoke of "robust police intervention" and urged all protesters to "go home."

  On the 14th of February 2022 he invoked the Emergencies Act, the first use since its enactment in 1988. He announced its revocation on the 23rd of February. On the 17th of February 2023, a judicial inquiry concluded that the government had met the legal threshold to invoke the act. In early 2024 Federal Court judge Richard Mosley disagreed. He ruled the invocation "not justified" and found that it infringed Charter rights. The federal government lost its appeal in January 2026.

  Meanwhile, Trudeau had to govern without a majority. On the 22nd of March 2022 the Liberals and the NDP signed a supply and confidence agreement. The NDP promised to back the Liberals in every confidence vote for the length of the 44th Parliament. In return, the Liberals would back the NDP's priorities. These were national dental care for low-income Canadians, national pharmacare, labour reforms for federally regulated workers and new taxes on financial institutions. That led to the Canadian Dental Care Plan and a framework for pharmacare, and the government also launched a national school food program. In September 2024 the NDP ended the agreement. The Conservatives then tabled three failed no-confidence motions, in September, October and December, none supported by the NDP. On the 20th of December 2024, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh pledged to table another and vote the government out.

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• 8. Ethics and Exit

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  In November 2016, opposition members attacked Trudeau's fundraising as "cash for access." Attendees paid upwards of $1500 to reach him and other cabinet members, and some events drew foreign businessmen who needed government approval. Trudeau said he was lobbied at such events but not influenced, and that no rules were broken. In 2017 he introduced legislation requiring more transparency for political fundraisers.

  The sharpest rebuke came from a holiday. In January 2017 the ethics commissioner, Mary Dawson, opened an investigation into a family vacation. It was spent on the private island of Aga Khan IV in the Bahamas. Her report in December 2017 found that Trudeau had violated four provisions of the 2006 Conflict of Interest Act. He was the first prime minister to break the modern federal law. In 2022 it was reported that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had considered criminal charges.

  In February 2018, an official dinner in Delhi became a problem. The government had invited Jaspal Atwal, a Khalistani nationalist previously convicted over the 1986 shooting and attempted murder of Indian cabinet minister Malkiat Singh Sidhu. He was also convicted over the 1985 assault on former British Columbia premier Ujjal Dosanjh. The Prime Minister's Office withdrew the invitation and apologized.

  The Globe and Mail reported on the 8th of February 2019 that the Prime Minister's Office had allegedly tried to influence Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould. The matter was the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. The charges alleged that the company had paid CA$48 million in bribes to officials in Muammar Gaddafi's Libyan government between 2001 and 2011. Trudeau called the story false and said he had never "directed" her on the case. He then waived privilege and cabinet confidences so she could speak. On the 11th of February the ethics commissioner opened an investigation.

  At House of Commons Justice Committee hearings, Wilson-Raybould submitted a call she had secretly recorded with Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick. On the tape, Wernick asks why the "DPA route" is not being used. He suggests Trudeau seek independent legal advice from former chief justice Beverly McLachlin. Wilson-Raybould says Trudeau would be breaching the constitutional principle of prosecutorial independence. On the 19th of March 2019, Liberal committee members voted as a bloc to end the investigation. The commissioner's final report, issued on the 14th of August 2019, concluded that "Mr. Trudeau contravened section 9 of the Act."

  Weeks later came the images. On the 18th of September 2019, Time magazine published a photograph of Trudeau in brownface from spring 2001, at an Arabian Nights-themed gala. He was teaching at West Point Grey Academy then. He apologized, calling the photo racist, and said: "I shouldn't have done that. I should have known better and I didn't. I'm really sorry." Global News then published a video of him in blackface in high school, singing "Day-O" at a talent show. A third video of him in racist dress followed, and he admitted he could not remember how often he had done it. Pollsters noted that many Canadians were unbothered or had accepted his apology. Some minority community groups and commentators defended him. Members of his own party were more critical.

  In July 2020, Trudeau faced another probe. On the 3rd of July the ethics commissioner opened an investigation into the decision to have WE Charity run a summer student grant program during the pandemic. Trudeau said WE had the capacity to do it, and the charity and government soon agreed to "part ways." The scrutiny grew after reports that his mother, brother and wife had been paid nearly $300,000 in total to speak at WE events. On the 16th of July the inquiry widened to include Finance Minister Bill Morneau. In the end Trudeau was cleared, and Morneau was found to have broken the conflict of interest law.

  A different pressure built after the 2021 election. The Liberals lost safe seats in by-elections, including Toronto-St. Paul's and LaSalle-Émard-Verdun in Montreal. Media reports spoke of internal frustration, and at one caucus meeting multiple members urged him to resign. He emerged saying the party remained "strong and united."

  Late 2024 brought a run of departures. On the 19th of September, Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez resigned to run for the Quebec Liberal leadership. On the 20th of November, Randy Boissonnault resigned after allegations that he ran a business seeking federal contracts and falsely claimed to be Indigenous. On the 15th of December, Housing Minister Sean Fraser said he would leave the cabinet at the next shuffle, citing family reasons.

  On the 16th of December 2024, hours before she was to release the fall economic statement, Chrystia Freeland resigned as deputy prime minister and finance minister. Nicknamed the "minister of everything," she was widely seen as a possible successor. Her resignation letter said Trudeau had asked her to step aside as finance minister and offered another post. She wrote: "to be effective, a Minister must speak on behalf of the Prime Minister and with his full confidence. In making your decision, you made clear that I no longer credibly enjoy that confidence." Her exit came amid tariff threats from the incoming Trump administration. She also reportedly opposed Trudeau's idea of $250 cheques for working Canadians who earned $150,000 or less in 2023. The statement released later that day showed a deficit of $61.9 billion for 2023-24, against a target of $40.1 billion or less.

  On the 6th of January 2025, at a news conference at Rideau Cottage, Trudeau said Canada deserved a real choice in the next election. He said he faced internal battles that would be a distraction. He would resign as Liberal leader and as prime minister once a successor was chosen. Governor General Mary Simon would prorogue Parliament until the 24th of March. On the 15th of January he confirmed he would not seek re-election in Papineau. The Liberals chose Mark Carney as leader on the 9th of March, and Trudeau formally notified the governor general of his resignation on the 14th. Carney was sworn in that morning as the 24th prime minister.

  Retrospective coverage divides on his record. The Canadian Press named cannabis legalization, the Canada Child Benefit and carbon pricing as major elements. It also named Indigenous reconciliation efforts, the pandemic response and the trade agreement with the United States and Mexico. It added that electoral reform, a prominent 2015 promise, went unfulfilled. Reuters said he became one of Canada's longest-serving prime ministers and won praise for gender parity policies. It said his popularity fell amid grocery and housing costs and caucus unrest. The Wall Street Journal pointed to living costs, housing shortages, immigration and climate policies, the SNC-Lavalin affair and the blackface revelations. The Hill Times called his tenure a decade of experimental policy, set against a more pragmatic approach under Carney.

  In April 2025 he made his first public appearance since stepping down, campaigning for Liberal candidate Marjorie Michel in Papineau. In May he attended the Speech from the Throne alongside former prime ministers Stephen Harper and Kim Campbell. As a former prime minister, he keeps the style "The Right Honourable" for life.

  His private life moved on as well. On the 2nd of August 2023 he announced his separation from Sophie Grégoire, saying later that month that he was focusing on his children. In 2025 it was reported that he was dating the American singer Katy Perry. On the 6th of December the two confirmed it on Instagram. In January 2026 he attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. A month later he bought a family home in Montreal's Outremont borough. Documents list him as sole owner and note that he and Grégoire Trudeau were in the process of divorcing.

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