Trudeau resigns with major climate promise still unfulfilled

After nearly a decade in power, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday he intends to resign once a new Liberal leader is crowned, bringing his tumultuous third term to a bruised and battered close with one critical climate regulation still outstanding. 

If the Liberal Party under a new leader intends to head into the next election claiming climate action as the party’s high ground, it is essential to finalize the cap on oil and gas pollution before voters head to the polls, said Catherine Abreu, a prominent Canadian climate advocate and member of Canada’s Net-Zero Advisory Body.

“If we don't see that oil and gas cap passed by the time we head into an election, I think that will be a serious black mark on the legacy of Trudeau and his Liberal Party in what has otherwise been a very significant legacy when it comes to climate action,” she said.

Facing the threat of U.S. tariffs and an uphill battle with voters, Abreu said she anticipates some in the Liberal Party will argue now is not the time to push forward with potentially unpopular policies. But she said Liberals should ask themselves who the policy is unpopular with, and if those are the people the party should cater to. 

With many potential Liberal voters ranking climate change as one of their top priorities, those voters will likely need help interpreting “whether the Liberal Party continues to be the party to vote for if you care about climate change,” she said. In the 2021 election, Liberals were able to secure endorsements from many leading environmentalists, given the strength and detail of their platform. But environmental organizations “are not going to be saying this is the party to vote for if you care about climate change unless that party does the thing they need to do, which is pass the policy to tackle Canada's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.”

“If you're thinking about it through an election lens, don't you want to be doing the number one thing that you need to do to make sure every climate organization is out there during the election saying this is the party you can trust to do something meaningful on climate change?” she said.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault confirmed on Monday to Canada’s National Observer he still intends to advance the policy, but acknowledged time is running out. He said the fastest the department has been able to advance a regulation from a draft stage to final regulations was with the zero-emission vehicle mandate, which took about a year. With the oil and gas pollution cap draft regulations unveiled in November, Guilbeault said he’d hoped the department could finalize the rules by June. 

“If the election is in the spring, it’s going to be really tough,” he conceded. “It's just a matter of not having enough time to be able to finalize this.”

As the Trudeau era comes to an end, there’s no question he did more on climate change than any previous prime minister, said Caroline Brouillette, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada in a statement. 

“The past 10 years have seen a revolution in how we tackle climate change in Canada: moving from a piecemeal and voluntary approach towards one where the government proactively plans, across departments and sectors of the economy, to reduce emissions to reach our climate targets,” she said. “That Canada’s pollution has now fallen below pre-pandemic levels is a tribute to the effectiveness of this work.”

Enshrining long-term emission reduction goals in law, introducing the country’s first national adaptation strategy, and putting in place regulations that tackle emissions from the electricity, transportation, heavy industry and agricultural sectors are all significant accomplishments, according to Climate Action Network Canada. 

Both Abreu and Brouillette said despite real climate accomplishments in the Trudeau era, it was also a decade marked by stark contradictions. 

“The Trudeau Liberals continued to ignore the elephant in the room, which is Canada's oil and gas emissions, and lacked the courage to seriously confront not just the climate pollution that comes from that industry, but the iron grip that industry has on Canadian financial institutions and government decision-making,” Abreu said. 

The sector has gotten its way repeatedly during Trudeau’s decade in power, she said, pointing to a series of favourable decisions — and lack of decisions — by the government toward the oilpatch.

“We obviously got the most egregious example of this in the Liberals choosing to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline the day after they declared a climate emergency,” she said. “But we also see it in the weakening of other policies, the delay of policies that might impact the oil and gas sector, and the years-long delay in actually getting the oil and gas cap off the ground after promising it so long ago.”

Still, Canadian oil and gas stocks shot up Monday following Trudeau’s resignation in an apparent sign of the sector’s optimism about an even more oil-friendly Conservative government. 

Leadership race incoming

As the climate-concerned wait to see the fate of the oil and gas pollution cap, the rest of the country's political observers are waiting for the Liberal leadership race to launch. 

To make way for a new leader while Trudeau’s minority government teeters on the brink of collapse, parliament has been suspended until March 24, giving two and half months for the Liberals to choose a new leader without risking a non-confidence vote in the House of Commons that would likely trigger an election. 

"This country deserves a real choice in the next election, and it's become clear to me that if I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election," Trudeau told reporters Monday morning, outside his official residence, Rideau Cottage.

The decision to step down comes two days before the Liberal Party was scheduled to have a caucus meeting in Ottawa, where it was widely expected pressure on Trudeau would continue to ramp up. With public support evaporating, the Liberal caucuses representing MPs from Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces (together representing 131 out of the Liberals’ 153 MPs) had each already called on Trudeau to resign.

His support from other parties has also evaporated. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre successfully transformed the carbon price into a devastating wedge issue, using it to split the Liberal-NDP alliance that allowed the country’s longest-serving minority government to stand.

After slumping in the polls, Trudeau’s Liberals began losing byelections this summer in previously safe ridings, triggering calls from Liberal backbenchers for his resignation. For the last half of 2024, Trudeau tried to duck those critics and regain control of the ship, but eventually, the final nail in his coffin was driven by his deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, who publicly resigned after he asked her to step aside as finance minister. 

Opposition response

Canadians should not expect opposition parties to give the Liberals any breathing room. Following Trudeau’s announcement, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh repeatedly told reporters it does not matter who the Liberals choose as the next leader, or what a new leader might offer to lure the NDP back as an ally to keep the government afloat, the party will vote non-confidence at the earliest opportunity. 

Similarly, Poilievre told hard-right-wing influencer Jordan Peterson in a recent interview Canadians “are not obliged to wait around while this party sorts out its shit.”

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said Trudeau made the right decision to step away, and reiterated the party would vote in favour of bringing down the government at the earliest opportunity, provided the specific language of the motion is in the interest of Quebecers. 

The only warm words Trudeau heard from opposition leaders Monday came from Green Party Leader Elizabeth May.

“To say public service is a sacrifice is to state the obvious. For that, and especially at a time when basic civility has eroded to where he could be attacked verbally and rudely in front of his youngest on a Christmas holiday, underscores how hard that public service has become,” May said in a statement.

“So, no matter how Liberal broken promises variously sadden me and make me very angry indeed, those are points to be made in the 2025 election,” she said. “Today, I want to thank Justin Trudeau for his service to his country and wish him and his family much happiness and peace in the years ahead.”