Blazingcatfur

Among the frontrunners to replace Justin Trudeau as Canadian prime minister are his onetime babysitter, a former Bank of England governor and an ex-minister whose own shock resignation foreshadowed Trudeau’s demise.

Trudeau, 53, announced he would step down as Liberal leader on Monday morning, citing the paralysis that has gripped the Canadian parliament as a key factor in his decision. He will remain in office until a replacement is chosen.

Justin Trudeau’s decision to resign as prime minister has jolted his ailing Liberal party, kicking off a leadership race that could determine the future – or the demise – of Canada’s “natural governing party”.

On a frigid Monday morning, Trudeau said that while “every bone in my body tells me to fight”, a procedural standstill in parliament, as well as his dismal polling numbers, meant there was no path forward to contest a fourth term as leader.

His decision to step away from a job he has held for nearly a decade comes as the party’s political fortunes are in freefall, suffering the loss of key political strongholds in recent byelections and the abdication of prominent cabinet ministers.

The resignation of Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister of Canada—or, at least, as the leader of the Liberal Party, until a new leader is chosen, which will amount to the same thing—took place this morning in front of the Prime Ministerial residence in Ottawa. It was a very Canadian setting, with the soon-departing figure of the still young Trudeau wearing an overcoat and gloves, and the smoky breath of winter rising from his mouth as he talked. He spoke in French and then in English and back again and, for Canadians abroad, there was something oddly moving in the easy bilingualism of the occasion. Taken as utterly normal in Canada, it still signals a remarkable and too easily taken for granted co-existence of two “founding peoples” that dates back to the early nineteenth century and the country’s beginnings. Canada, from far away, has always seemed the model liberal country, and this multiculturalism—extended since to the many ethnic tiles of the “Canadian mosaic”—is part of it.

With his announced and yet delayed resignation, Justin Trudeau has put Canada in a horrible position. After weeks of seemingly having no one in charge, we now have a lame-duck PM, at the very moment, we need a government with a strong mandate.