Today, Canada's Justin Trudeau announced that he intends to resign as Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party under tremendous pressure from his own caucus and from among his closest allies.

Here's part of his remarks making that announcement earlier today.

I have always been driven by my love for Canada, by my desire to serve Canadians and by what is in the best interests of Canadians.

And Canadians deserve a real choice in the next election.

And it has become obvious to me with the internal battles that I cannot be the one to carry the liberal standard into the next

election.

Trudeau will remain, Prime Minister, until the new liberal leader is selected by the end

of March, as his party prepares for a formidable challenge in the next election later this

year.

I'm joined now by Professor Roland Paris. He's director of the

Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and a former

senior advisor on foreign policy to the Prime Minister of Canada. Professor Paris, welcome.

So we should say there have been signs this was coming for months, but help us understand

why this is happening now and was his resignation, in your view, inevitable?

I think it was heading in this direction for some time. This is a story of a government and a prime minister who's been in power for nearly 10 years.

Canadians are very clearly tired of him. Polls turned decisively against him about 18 months ago.

He tried and his team tried everything they could to try and reverse that trend.

But with the prospect of an election in 2025 and what looked like an almost inevitable crushing

defeat in that election.

As you mentioned in your intro, members of his own caucus and his own party called for him

to resign and to be replaced by someone else, and that's what he did today.

It's worth reminding everyone, he was a real rising star in global progressive politics

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