After nearly a decade in power Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been forced out of office, after plummeting approval ratings pushed his MPs to revolt. But as Global News reported, “Almost all of the MPs Global News spoke to believe Trudeau has moved the party too far to the left and that shift has played a key role in the decline of the Liberals.” Is the collapse of Trudeau really because he was too far left, and is the rise of Poilievre because of a widespread surge to the right?
2015: From Harper to Trudeau
In 2015, after more than a decade of Harper in power (with Poilievre as one of his MPs), people were sick of the Conservatives and demanding broader change. The Indigenous sovereignty movement Idle No More exposed Canada’s ongoing colonial history, and there were mass marches for climate justice. There were rallies to restore refugee health and protests for Black Lives Matter. There were fights for decent work, from campaigns to raise the minimum wage to strikes across Quebec. When Harper attacked civil liberties with the ‘anti-terror’ Bill C-51, there were protests across the country.
The Liberals had supported every major Harper policy – from the occupation of Afghanistan to pipelines through Indigenous land, and from corporate tax cuts to Bill C-51. Yet in the 2015 federal election it was the Liberals – the twin party of corporate Canada – that capitalized on demands for change.
The NDP started the 2015 election campaign in the lead, promising to raise the minimum wage, provide national childcare, and end Bill C-51. But Thomas Mulcair turned his back on movements and campaigned to the right: he supported pipelines and fighter jets and promised ‘balanced budgets’. This allowed Trudeau to campaign to the left – criticizing wealthy tax dodgers, promising not to buy F-35 fighter jets but instead to fund infrastructure, and pledging support for climate justice, reconciliation and refugees.
The result: the surge in voter turnout against Harper went to the Liberals, along with drawing a million votes from the NDP. This catapulted Trudeau to power promising ‘sunny ways’, and the movements pushed the Liberals to deliver some reforms. But increasing betrayals, and the contrast between Trudeau’s rhetoric and reality, has fueled resentment and anger.
2015-2025: Rhetoric vs reality
In 2015, Trudeau claimed, “There is no relationship more important to me – and to Canada – than the one with First Nations, the Metis Nation, and Inuit.” In response to the Idle No More movement and the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Trudeau launched the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. But by 2018 Trudeau revealed his true priorities, spending billions on the Trans Mountain pipeline. While Trudeau branded himself a feminist, his pipeline expansion through Indigenous land was enforced by RCMP arrests of Wet’suwet’en Matriarchs. As mass graves of Indigenous children at residential schools were discovered, Trudeau could offer only empty rhetoric.
Trudeau started his first term at the Paris climate talks, promising that “our government is making climate change a top priority.” There have been some investments, but not the scale required by the climate crisis. And rather than phasing out oil and gas, his main strategy has been the carbon tax – which relies on the same profit-driven market that is fueling climate change. Not only are carbon taxes ineffective in reducing emissions, and pass costs onto consumers. They also distract from real alternatives for people and the planet – like decolonization, a just transition for workers in high carbon industries, and raising the wages for existing low-carbon jobs. As a result, the carbon tax has failed as a climate strategy while building resentment.
The contradiction between Trudeau’s rhetoric and reality also fueled anger against the government’s public health response. “We are all in this together,” Trudeau announced at the start of COVID-19. A response to a public health crisis that disproportionately impacted low-income and racialized workers should have been to reverse decades of federal cuts to healthcare, and to support the social determinants of health like housing, wages, and working conditions. This could address multiple health crises at once, from COVID-19 to the opioid epidemic. Movements during the pandemic did push Trudeau to deliver paid sick days for federal workers. But the main government pandemic response prioritized the 1%: while workers had temporary access to the limited CERB program of wage support, the government gave over $100 billion to employers through CEWS. Rather than mandate employers to provide higher wages and safer workplaces, the government mandated vaccines – in effect blaming workers for the spread of COVID-19. This allowed the right-wing to mobilize against pandemic response with a convoy to Ottawa, and Trudeau added fuel to the fire by invoking the Emergencies Act to restrict civil liberties.
Trudeau’s contradictory rhetoric and policies have also fueled anti-migrant racism. Early in his first term his government responded to the movement to restore funding to refugee health and welcomed Syrian refugees. In the 2021, in response to a mass movement for migrant justice, Trudeau promised permanent resident status for migrant workers, students and undocumented people. But in response to Poilievre’s anti-migrant racism, Trudeau broke his promise on permanent residence. This has fueled the scapegoating of migrants for the housing and affordability crises. And on the international stage, while Trudeau quickly condemned Russia’s war on Ukraine, he was silent on genocide in Gaza – allowing Poilievre to cheer on Israel.
All these broken promises, including the much vaunted electoral reform he ran on in 2015, cemented his image as an arrogant and distrustful leader. Trudeau promised he was a real change from Harper’s government, but he was more of a continuation. He has continued to use back to work legislation and the more insidious s107 of the Canadian labour code to order workers back to work and imposes arbitration. While Trudeau did deliver some significant reforms – like the legalization of marijuana and new the child care program – but this was far outweighed by what he failed to deliver and his coziness with big business.
Trudeau’s collapse is not because of a radical left agenda but because of lip service and betrayal. But why, then, has Poilievre monopolized the anger?
The resistible rise of Poilievre’s right-wing populism
Poilievre is not a fresh face in Ottawa, he has been a career politician serving throughout Harper’s decade in power – he has already qualified for the single largest pension of any elected official in the country. So how has he emerged as the alternative to Trudeau? As Donald Trump showed in his recent re-election: people are suffering through multiple crises – climate, cost-of-living, housing, addiction, healthcare – and demanding change. If left parties don’t offer politics of hope, then right-wing parties will offer the politics of grievance.
The NDP has not offered bold alternatives to the Liberals, instead agreeing with the carbon tax and the CEWS corporate bailout. The last two elections (2019 and 2021) the NDP made no progress, and the Liberal lost votes and were reduced to a minority government (and with less of the popular vote than the Conservatives). The only significant change in the 2021 election was the emergence of the far-right ‘People’s Party of Canada’, a warning that the right-wing will make gains if there is no left alternative to the status quo.
But for the past year the NDP have propped up the increasingly unpopular Liberal government. In exchange the Liberals have enacted pharmacare and dental care programs. These reforms are either sadly too narrow or too late to have garnered a popular base. Reforms are best won in alliance with the movements, not the Liberals. From the decent work movement that won federal paid sick days, to Palestine solidarity movement that pushed Trudeau to agree to a motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, it is movements outside Parliament that are crucial for change. When the NDP propped up the Liberals, it left Poilievre as the lone voice speaking against the government – and he has captured the anger against the Trudeau decade and channeled it to the right.
Despite his anti-union record as MP, Poilievre has captured workers’ economic anxieties, but channels the anger towards migrants. He echoes youth frustrations with high tuition and low wages, but claims the free market is the solution – instead of funding education or supporting a higher minimum wage. Poilievre has monopolized anger against the cost of living crisis, and tied it to the carbon tax – with no plan to support affordable housing or food.
But Poilievre’s own contradictions reveal the limits to his right-wing populism and the possibilities of challenging both the Liberals and Conservatives. The alternative to Trudeau’s carbon tax is not Poilievre’s ‘axe the tax’ sloganeering, but Indigenous sovereignty and climate justice movements that support people and the planet. The alternative to the cost of living crisis is not cutting taxes and reinforcing borders, but migrant justice, stronger public services, and decent work for all. The alternative to the housing and opioid crises are not police and prisons but affordable housing and social supports. Building the movements that stopped Harper, and that were stifled by Trudeau, can also stop Poilievre, and should be echoed by the NDP.
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