When Justin Trudeau called a risky snap election earlier this month, he said Canadians faced their most consequential choice since 1945 — progress with him at the helm, or a step backwards under the Conservatives.
Amid a fourth wave of the pandemic and a chaotic Afghanistan evacuation, Canadians responded with a collective shrug. Within a week, the prime minister’s five-point poll lead disappeared. Now he is six points behind — his political future in doubt.
Once again, the golden boy of western politics looks chastened, just two years after Canadians re-elected him without a majority. If he loses, it will mark a dismal end for Trudeau, whose ambitious agenda and promises of “sunny ways” saw him catapult the third-placed Liberal Party to a handsome majority in 2015, but who has since been tarnished by ethics scandals, unkept promises and blackface images.
