Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to announce his resignation this week due to increasing dissent within his Liberal Party.
The announcement could be made as early as Monday, before a national Liberal Party caucus on Wednesday.
It is unclear if Trudeau will remain in an interim capacity during the search for new party leadership. Trudeau’s popularity has declined in recent months, with his government barely surviving multiple no-confidence votes and facing calls for his resignation.
Despite vowing to lead the Liberals into the October 2025 elections, pressure from US President-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened a 25% tariff on Canadian goods, may have contributed to Trudeau’s decision to step down.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland quit in December after disagreeing with Trudeau over how to respond to Trump’s apparent plan, in the first open dissent against the prime minister within his cabinet.
Later that month, Trudeau announced a major shakeup to his cabinet — changing one-third of his team in a bid to settle the political turmoil.
In November, he traveled to Florida to meet with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in a bid to head off a trade war.
But since then the president-elect has also landed humiliating blows against Trudeau on social media, repeatedly calling him “governor” of Canada and declaring that the United States’ northern neighbor becoming the 51st US state is a “great idea.”
Trudeau swept to power in 2015, with a mop of dark curly hair and confident swagger, and led the Liberals to two more ballot box victories in 2019 and 2021.
But he now trails his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, by 20 points in public opinion polls.
Coming late to politics after working as a snowboard instructor, bartender, bouncer and teacher, Trudeau was first elected in 2008 to the House of Commons to represent a working-class Montreal neighborhood.
In his first two terms as prime minister, he brought in Senate reforms, signed a new trade deal with the United States and introduced a carbon tax to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The married father of three also legalized cannabis, held a public inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and passed legislation permitting medically assisted suicide.
