Trudeau resignation: Mixed global legacy for outgoing P.M.


OTAWA –

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will leave the world stage with a legacy of promoting feminist causes and focusing on Asia, along with criticism that Canada’s actions fell short of the government’s rhetoric.

“There has been such a disconnect between what they say and the actual results on the ground,” said Roger Hilton, a fellow at the Bratislava-based Canadian Institute of Global Affairs.

Trudeau announced Monday that he will resign after the Liberal Party holds a leadership race at an undetermined date, while also proroguing Parliament until March 24.

Hilton noted that Trudeau took office in 2015 at a time when Europe was rocked by Russia’s invasion of Crimea and the downing of a Malaysian Airlines passenger flight over Ukraine.

Hilton said there was a “desire to have more Canada on the international stage” to shore up international rules that Moscow was challenging and collectively fight climate change.

Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has raised global inflation and tested the solidarity of European countries, which have faced covert sabotage and assassinations.

“The world is really on fire,” he said. “There are many different reasons why Canada needs to strengthen its cyber infrastructure or its supply chains. And there is always a reason why that doesn’t happen.”

Hilton said Canada has made a difference by leading NATO’s military deployment in Latvia since 2017, training Ukrainian troops and defending Ukraine in international forums.

“Canada has provided significant financial assistance; it has been one of the loudest spokespeople on the world stage,” he said.

However, Hilton said many Europeans felt Ottawa could have done more to counter Russia’s influence. The most common lament is Canada’s failure to meet NATO’s defense spending target of 2 percent of GDP and insufficient military aid to Ukraine.

Ottawa ranks high among allies in humanitarian aid, but relatively low in military support.

“The elephant in the room on defense spending has really hurt us in terms of being credible to allies,” he said.

“They were very late with the basic investments in Norad,” he added, referring to joint US air defense in North America.

The Liberals released an Arctic foreign policy just a few weeks ago. They recently promised to finally publish a strategy for Africa, after years of deliberating over whether to proceed and temporarily downgrade that project to a framework.

The Senate has warned that Canada risks losing its historic reputation as a reliable partner in Africa, whose demographics and resources put the continent on track for an economic boom.

Vina Nadjibulla, vice-president of research at the Asia Pacific Foundation, says Trudeau boosted Canada’s focus on the Indo-Pacific region, but struggled to meet some of his stated goals.

“Canada’s position on the world stage has been mixed,” he said. “It would be a difficult period for any government to navigate.”

Nadjibulla said the government has astutely diagnosed the complexities and threats facing Canada, but has a mixed record in implementing and resourcing its responses.

With respect to India in particular, Canada’s relationship is “at an all-time low,” largely due to accusations that Indian diplomats were behind murders and serious crimes in Canada, but also due to issues of long-standing, such as commercial irritants.

Trudeau’s 2018 visit to India was widely seen as an embarrassment, with his family draped in ceremonial attire and a scandal after Trudeau’s team invited a man with a serious criminal record to events during the trip.

In Southeast Asia, Canada has strengthened ties with economically booming countries, partnering in fields such as nuclear energy, naval security and fisheries management.

But Ottawa has also struggled to find its place there amid growing competition between China and the United States, and has struggled to establish a stable relationship with Beijing after the years-long detention of two Canadians.

Those tensions were most visible at the G20 summit in November 2022, when Chinese President Xi Jinping rebuked Trudeau in a meeting filmed in Indonesia.

The Trudeau government never issued an overall foreign policy strategy, Nadjibulla noted.

“The Western bloc and the G7 are having to deal with a much more fragmented world. Therefore, our overall soft power and position in the world has diminished,” he said.

“We are still not investing enough in building relationships and understanding how complex certain countries have become, particularly India, China, of course, but also Brazil and others around the world, these growing middle powers.”

That likely contributed to the Liberals’ failure to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2020, years after criticizing their Conservative predecessors for doing the same in 2011.

Robert Huish, a professor of international development at Dalhousie University, said this is partly due to a lack of focus on development issues, as Canada seeks to help with a variety of problems on the world stage rather than clear priorities. defined.

He added that the government’s opaque handling of China’s alleged foreign interference may have emboldened transnational repression by countries like India.

“It left a salty taste to Canadians, but it also showed our weakness on the world stage, with other adversaries and allies doing the same,” he argued.

Huish said Trudeau is among the last Western leaders standing who were in office before the COVID-19 pandemic, causing economic challenges that have led to many incumbents being removed from office.

“When Mr. Trudeau came in, we were the star of the show,” Huish said. “It was really replaced by a kind of defensive posture, which has put Canada in a really difficult situation internationally.”

Still, the Trudeau government has been praised by development organizations like the Equality Fund for focusing on women and LGBTQ+ people in foreign aid projects and for codifying gender issues in trade agreements.

Canada will host the G7 this year, which Nadjibulla said is a “tremendous opportunity to exercise leadership and advance our interests,” if political leaders can devote enough energy to the political tumult and do the preparatory work.

That will require whoever is in office to have a coherent strategy on issues such as extracting critical minerals and managing the U.S. threat to impose harmful tariffs.

“Given the turmoil we face, it is important for Canada to have a government and political leadership that has a strong mandate from Canadians, and that is what others are also seeing.”


This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 6, 2025.



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