Canada PM Trudeau says he will resign
He will stay on in his post until the the ruling Liberal Party has chosen a replacement for him
CANADIAN Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday (Jan 6) said that he intended to step down but he would stay on in his post until the ruling Liberal Party has chosen a replacement for him.
Trudeau, under heavy pressure from Liberal legislators to quit amid polls showing the party will be crushed at the next election, made his remarks in a live address.
“I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa following a protracted political crisis that saw top Liberal allies urge him to quit.
Trudeau, 53, took office in November 2015 and won re-election twice, becoming one of Canada’s longest-serving prime ministers.
But his popularity started dipping two years ago amid public anger over high prices and a housing shortage, and his fortunes never recovered.
Polls show the Liberals will badly lose to the official opposition Conservatives in an election that must be held by late October, regardless of who the leader is.
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CTV, citing a government official, said that Trudeau wanted to suspend the work of parliament until Mar 24 to allow the Liberals to run a leadership race.
Parliament was due to resume on Jan 27 and opposition parties had vowed to bring down the government as soon as they could, most likely at the end of March.
But if parliament does not return until Mar 24, the earliest they could present a non-confidence motion would be some time in May.
The Canadian dollar was trading 0.8 per cent higher at 1.4325 to the US dollar, after touching its strongest intraday level since Dec 17 at 1.4280. Analysts said that the prospect of greater political clarity helped underpin the currency.
Trudeau had until recently been able to fend off Liberal legislators worried about the polls and the loss of safe seats in two special elections last year.
But calls for him to step aside have soared since last month, when he tried to demote Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, one of his closest Cabinet allies, after she pushed back against his proposals for more spending.
Freeland quit instead and penned a letter accusing Trudeau of “political gimmicks” rather than focusing on what was best for the country.
The Conservatives are led by Pierre Poilievre, a career politician who rose to prominence in early 2022 when he strongly supported truck drivers who took over the centre of Ottawa as part of a protest against Covid-19 vaccine mandates.
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