Trudeau departs, brings to an end nine-year tenure as PM of Canada
ByAnirudh Bhattacharyya
Mar 15, 2025 10:38 AM IST
Trudeau was replaced as Canada’s PM on Friday by former central bank governor Mark Carney, who has signalled he will take the government and the ruling Liberal Party to a more centrist position
Toronto: Justin Trudeau submitted his resignation from the post of Canada’s Prime Minister on Friday, bringing to an end a tenure of over nine years at the helm in Ottawa.
Canada’s then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Canada, on March 10. (AP)
Canada’s then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Canada, on March 10. (AP)
“Thank you, Canada — for trusting in me, for challenging me, and for granting me the privilege to serve the best country, and the best people, on earth,” he stated in a farewell message on X on Friday.
In a valedictory video on Thursday, he stated, “This may be my last day here in this office, but I will always be boldly and unapologetically Canadian.”
Trudeau was replaced as Canada’s PM on Friday by former central bank governor Mark Carney, who has signalled he will take the government and the ruling Liberal Party to a more centrist position after his predecessor left-of-centre rule.
On Wednesday, Trudeau had thanked the voters of Papineau, the riding in Montreal, which he had represented since 2013. Trudeau had stated in January that he will not contest the next federal election.
He was replaced as leader of the ruling party by Carney on Sunday, after the latter won the leadership race comfortably with nearly 86% of the ballots cast by registered members.
On January 6, Trudeau had stated his intent to resign once his successor was selected.
His stint as PM ended with his unpopularity high and his party suffering due to that. His exit has seen the Liberals fortunes turn.
It also marks the end of a period of cratering of relations between India and Canada, especially after Trudeau stated in the House of Commons on September 18, 2023, that there were “credible allegations” of a potential link between Indian agents and the killing of pro-Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar three months earlier in Surrey, British Columbia. India had described those allegations as “absurd” and “motivated.”
Matters took a nastier turn in October last year, when Ottawa asked new Delhi to waive immunity for six Indian officials posted in Canada so they could be interrogated in connection with violent criminal activity in the country. Instead, India withdrew the six and also expelled six Canadian diplomats in retaliation.
However, when Trudeau first came to power in 2015 with a majority mandate, his then Minister of International Trade Chrystia Freeland was expected to focus “on expanding trade with large fast-growing markets” including India.
Tensions stated in the spring of 2017. A Member of the Provincial Parliament Harinder Malhi, part of the then ruling Liberal Party of Ontario caucus, moved a motion in the Assembly in April terming the 1984 anti-Sikhs riots in India as “genocide”.
That stung and surprised India, as one official said, “All of us thought this was a dead issue. But this is politics of election dynamics.”
At the end of the month, Trudeau appeared at a Khalsa Day celebration at Toronto’s Nathan Philips Square; the first sitting PM to attend the annual event since 2004. While that seemed innocuous on the surface and part of Trudeau’s diversity virtue signalling shtick, that event routinely features a parade with floats honouring the likes of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and Khalistani flags, and its 2017 iteration was no different.
Gurpatwant Pannun, legal advisor to the hardline secessionist group, Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), predictably, welcomed Trudeau’s presence at the event, “It’s very important and we are glad he made an appearance.”
Ties worsened with Trudeau’s disastrous visit to India in February 2018. The low point of that trip was the presence of Jaspal Atwal at a reception organised by the Canadian government in Mumbai. Atwal was convicted in Canada for the murder of visiting Punjab Minister Malkiat Singh Sidhu in Vancouver Island in 1986.
Atwal famously turned up at the reception in Mumbai and was photographed with, among others, Trudeau’s then wife Sophie Gregoire, causing a firestorm in Canadian media. Ottawa later blamed “rogue elements” in the Indian government for subverting the visit, without explaining how they managed to plant Atwal at an invite-only event organised by the Canadian government.
Personally humiliated, Trudeau reacted by barring Indian officials in Canada from meetings with his ministers.
In December that year, the 2018 Public Report on the Terrorism Threat to Canada submitted by Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, listed, for the first time, Khalistani extremism. Four months later, in a stunning reversal, the government dropped the reference to Sikh/Khalistani extremism, with an updated version eliminated that and replaced it with the anodyne Extremists who Support Violent Means to Establish an Independent State Within India.
Trust and momentum in the relationship had been forfeited, never to be regained during Trudeau’s tenure.
In fact, hope was renewed of rapproachement in 2023, as Canadian ministers visited India for the G20 and held meetings with the counterparts, and there was some expectation that Trudeau arrival for the leaders’ summit on September would be highlighted with the signing of an Early Progress Trade Agreement.
Instead, the Nijjar killing shrouded relations and within days of his return to Ottawa, Trudeau made his accusations against India. More than a year later, on October 18, while testifying before the foreign interference committee in Ottawa, Trudeau said, “At that point it was primarily intelligence, not hard evidentiary proof.”
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