Will Justin Trudeau’s Resignation Lead to the MAGA-fication of Canada?
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
WNYC Studios and The New Yorker
4.2 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2025
⏱️ 31 minutes
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Summary
After nearly a decade as Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau has resigned from office. His stepping down follows a years-long decline in popularity, which stands in sharp contrast to his meteoric rise in 2015. It now seems likely that the Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, whose far-right populist support some have likened to Trump’s MAGA movement, will attain Canada’s highest office. The New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik joins the show to discuss Trudeau’s descent, Poilievre’s ascent, expectations for the upcoming parliamentary election, and what the future of Canadian politics may hold.
This week’s reading:
- “Why Justin Trudeau Had to Step Down,” by Adam Gopnik
- “How Much Do Democrats Need to Change?,” by Peter Slevin
- “Bourbon Street After the Terror,” by Paige Williams
- “How Sheriffs Might Power Trump’s Deportation Machine,” by Jessica Pishko
- “New Mexico’s Nuclear-Weapons Boom,” by Abe Streep
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| 0:00.0 | After nearly 10 years as Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau has resigned from office, |
| 0:06.6 | under growing pressure from his party and a rapid decline in public approval. |
| 0:11.4 | Now, Trudeau will be replaced as leader of the Liberal Party, |
| 0:15.6 | and that person will go on to challenge the new Conservative Party leader, |
| 0:19.4 | a Trump-like figure named Pierre |
| 0:21.2 | Poliev in the general election. |
| 0:25.0 | What caused Trudeau's fall from grace? Where do Canadian politics go from here? And what |
| 0:30.5 | might happen should Poliiev be elected? Newarker staff writer Adam Goughlinck joins the show |
| 0:35.8 | to discuss all of that and more. |
| 0:39.4 | You're listening to The Political Scene. |
| 0:42.5 | I'm Tyler Foggett, and I'm a senior editor at The New Yorker. |
| 0:46.6 | Hey, Adam, thanks so much for being here. |
| 0:47.8 | Delighted to be with you, Tyler. |
| 0:49.9 | So let's start all the way at the beginning. |
| 0:55.5 | Could you tell me about Justin Trudeau's initial rise to political power? Surely it didn't hurt that he's the son of Pierre Trudeau, who was Canadian Prime Minister for some 15 years. |
| 1:00.5 | Like all Canadians of a certain generation, I can remember when Justin Trudeau was born, because he was born on Christmas Day, as was one of his brothers. |
| 1:10.1 | And you see the joke that only God, God, unlike Pierre Trudeau Day, as was one of his brothers, and that you see the joke that only God, |
| 1:12.3 | unlike Pierre Trudeau, had only had one son born on Christmas Day. |
| 1:17.1 | So Justin's been in that limited sense, a national figure, truly, since the night he was born. |
| 1:22.8 | His father, Pierre Trudeau, was the dominant figure of Canadian political life and in most respects |
| 1:30.1 | Canadian public life for the last quarter of the 20th century. He became prime minister in 1968 |
| 1:37.4 | and remained prime minister off and on for most of the next 20-plus years. He saw his mission to keep Quebec within Confederation. |
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