Brian Mulroney’s death last year led to many reconsiderations of his record as Prime Minister, stressing accomplishments and positive contributions that had often been ignored or downplayed in the past. Despite flaws and shortcomings common to all political leaders, Mulroney had done some good things and established a credible record of leadership in some very turbulent times. As the encomiums flowed, it was easy to miss one rather large irony: this coincided with an orgy of reporting on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s spectacular decline in public esteem as if it were an unprecedented fall from grace for a leader who had entered office with a majority government a decade earlier. It was now easy to forget that Mulroney had sunk even lower in polls in his last year in office following two successive majority governments. It was even pointed out that in his final days as Prime Minister, Mulroney’s approval ratings had dipped below the proportion of people who believed that Elvis was still alive.
Like Trudeau later, Mulroney finally accepted reality and ducked out of the way just before voters demolished his Progressive Conservative Party in the 1993 election, leaving it with just two MPs. Trudeau handed his party over to a successor who has just led it to a fourth term.
It had become eminently fashionable in the media to heap scorn on Trudeau as PM – buoyed by Pierre Poilievre’s remorseless vilification campaign blaming everything that had gone wrong or was imagined to have gone wrong on the deliberate malice and/or incompetence of Justin Trudeau. This campaign was apparently rewarded by the precipitous rise of Poilievre’s obsessively anti-Trudeau Conservative Party to stratospheric heights in the polls – until its equally precipitous fall in 2025. The anti-Trudeau wave was also part of a postpandemic global tsunami of anti-incumbency rage threatening to overwhelm leaders and governments everywhere.
The rise and fall and rise again of Mulroney’s reputation offers a salutary caution to those ready to bury Trudeau as a historic failure. Different men, different parties, different times, of course. But there are reasonable grounds to believe that the long view of Trudeau as PM will be more nuanced and balanced than the indictment sheets delivered by many commentators in the months leading up to and following his resignation and departure. Here is some of the “case for.”
A left-centre government
The first consideration in any assessment is: what goals or objectives did Trudeau set for himself and his government? It was apparent from his successful 2015 campaign, which resulted in his one and only majority government, that Trudeau’s Liberal Party was not the Liberal Party led by his predecessors, despite his invocation on election night of Laurier’s “sunny ways.” The old Laurier–King–Saint-Laurent–Pearson–Pierre Trudeau–Chrétien Liberal Party was a classic centrist catch-all, big-tent, brokerage party, one that so adroitly shifted between centre-left and centre-right in response to the prevailing winds that it dominated federal politics from the late 19th to the early 21st century. Now the political centre had shrunk as polarization increased – not to the same precipitous degree as in the USA, but markedly in Canada as well, especially as Stephen Harper’s unified Conservatives shifted rightward.
In 2011, Harper achieved his only majority government, but it was matched in opposition for the first time by a surging NDP under Jack Layton that reduced the Liberals to third-party status. This seemed to presage a more programmatic and ideological right-left politics. If Layton had not succumbed to cancer, that scenario might well have played out in 2015. Instead, Layton was succeeded as NDP leader by Tom Mulcair, a former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister and a small-c conservative social democrat.
This presented Trudeau, as the newly installed Liberal leader, with a golden electoral opportunity, one that he did not fail to grasp. Mulcair, worried about scaring away cautious support from his “socialist” party, pledged that an NDP government would run balanced budgets and would not under any circumstances raise taxes, even on the wealthiest. Trudeau outflanked the NDP on the left by promising that he would run deficits if necessary to fund progressive programs and impose a surcharge on high income earners.
NDPers like to claim that Liberals habitually campaign from the left but govern from the right. Trudeau campaigned from the left but made it clear from the onset of his government that it would govern from the left, or at least the centre-left. That is the consistent thread that runs through his record in office, and judgements on his record reflect the ideological inclinations of observers, conservatives being particularly critical. “Canada is broken” is obviously an exaggeration, but it may be that Trudeau Liberal economic policies will in retrospect be found severely wanting. That said, it is also fair to examine the Liberal record in terms of what the Trudeau team set out to accomplish, not just in terms of the agendas of those opposed.
Liberal finance ministers in the past tended to represent Bay Street perspectives on economic policy. Bill Morneau, successful Bay Street executive and Trudeau’s first finance minister, was cut from this cloth. Eventually forced out, Morneau published a memoir, significantly entitled Where to from Here: A Path to Canadian Prosperity, in which he wrote of his incomprehension that when he confronted the PM with his contrary vision of economic policy, Trudeau appeared indifferent. In the past when business spoke, prime ministers, Liberal or Conservative, had listened. Morneau’s departure signalled the virtual demise of the once-powerful Bay Street wing of the Liberal Party (at least until Mark Carney the central banker and Goldman-Sachs alumnus took over, although the jury will be out on Carney for a while yet). Trudeau’s Liberal government did not just drift to the left of centre from time to time with the prevailing winds: it was stationed on the left-centre.
As a left-centre government, the Liberals had some significant achievements. Foremost is their 2016 revamping of the child tax benefit they had inherited from previous governments. The new Liberal Canada Child Benefit (CCB) was a tax-free payment targeting low- and middle-income families, providing between $6,000 and $7,000 per year for children under six and between $5,000 and $6,000 for those aged six to 17. This is a social program that has really worked. The CCB lifted about 300,000 children out of poverty and helped reduce child poverty by 40 per cent between 2013 and 2017. So successful was the CCB that it became the rare example of a Canadian policy copied by the Americans when the Obama administration introduced a version as a pilot project; it appeared to be working well until Republicans in Congress scrapped it.
Liberal social reform credentials under minority governments after 2019 were cemented under the supply and confidence agreement with the NDP. Under this arrangement, the Liberals brought in universal $10-a-day daycare (borrowed from Quebec), dental care for those not covered by private plans and a (partial) national pharmacare program. On daycare, it should be noted that upon assuming office in 2006, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives had scrapped a national daycare program that the previous Liberal government had negotiated with the unanimous approval of the provinces: the contrast between Liberal and Conservative governments on daycare was stark.
The Liberal-NDP supply and confidence agreement was, until the NDP pulled the plug, a kind of paradigm of where Trudeau Liberalism had arrived on the ideological spectrum. On political values, social issues and policy preferences, Liberal supporters were and remain almost indistinguishable from the moderate centre-left views of NDP and Green supporters, as well as Bloc supporters in Quebec on most issues save federalism and the Constitution. The political problem for the centre-left is that this relatively large section of the electorate is split two, three and even four ways in partisan terms, while the relatively smaller centre-right grouping represents a rock-solid Conservative base.
Trudeau in effect managed to create a de facto united centre-left under his Liberal banner in 2015, but this temporary realignment did not last as the NDP recovered enough of its traditional strength so that, along with the BQ in Quebec, it prevented Trudeau from obtaining majorities in 2019 and 2021. The supply and confidence agreement with the NDP was a transitory but productive recreation of a broad centre-left. It appears to have had little political payoff: the NDP failed to get much credit from its core electorate while the Trudeau Liberals plunged in the polls. The 2025 post-Trudeau election, however, showed another de facto united centre-left as the Carney Liberals swept NDP and BQ seats into their camp.
Energy and climate change: Failures of execution
A further complication in left-right politics: the Conservative base, although stable and enduring, is less efficient in translating votes into seats than the Liberal Party because it is disproportionately concentrated in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where many Conservative votes are wasted (one reason why Harper, in five elections as Conservative leader, achieved a majority only once, in 2011). This electoral asymmetry imparts a regionalist dimension to the left-right partisan alignment, as evident in assertions of “western” alienation and even threats of “western” separation from a more left-centrist and Liberal Canada. Not surprisingly, the wave of anti-Trudeau sentiment was always strongest on the Prairies, although certainly present in parts of British Columbia and Ontario as well.
It is against this background that Trudeau’s record on the crucial issues of energy resource development and climate change must be assessed. His National Climate Plan was the most comprehensive attempt at countering climate change yet mounted in this country. At its heart was carbon pricing, largely copied from what had initially appeared as a successful and path-breaking initiative by the BC Liberal government of Gordon Campbell. This was a policy that should have appealed to both environmentalists and free market enthusiasts, resetting the market to reflect the negative externality effects of carbon emissions while at the same time compensating individuals for their additional fuel costs.
As everyone knows, the carbon tax is now dead, both in Canada and in BC, but make no mistake: its ultimate rendering as politically toxic is an appalling example of good evidence-based public policy being destroyed by a deplorable demagogic campaign of misinformation and misrepresentation. Pierre Poilievre may have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the 2025 election, but his Orwellian “Axe the Tax” agitation succeeded in twisting public perception of carbon pricing into a grotesque caricature.
Sadly, the Trudeau government signally failed to explain its policy or even to properly identify the rebate monies deposited in people’s accounts as direct compensation for higher prices at the pump. Then it gutted credibility from the tax by offering a special carve-out for Atlantic Canadians’ heating oil costs in response to panicky Liberal MPs from the Maritimes. The ignominious defeat of the carbon tax was self-inflicted as well as partisan-inflicted.
Carbon pricing was at the heart of the Trudeau climate plan, but there were more policy instruments in the toolbox, many of which remain in place. It is significant that the Alberta and Saskatchewan governments, echoed by the federal Conservatives, continue to demand the retraction of virtually all the other tools, such as emission caps. The alternative to Trudeau’s National Climate Plan was never a different plan, certainly not a better one; it was always no plan at all. Trudeau should be credited with taking the risky initiative and tying his government to achieving the plan’s objectives. Failure was not the result of a poor plan but of implementation and execution in the face of implacable, and often unscrupulous, opposition from climate change solution deniers. What remains to be seen is what elements will survive into the Carney government, but what does will constitute Trudeau’s climate legacy.
The other side of the environment-energy imbroglio is Trudeau’s decision to take federal ownership of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, expanded to triple its capacity to carry Alberta oilsands bitumen to the BC coast and on to Asian export markets. Originally part of a deal Trudeau made with then–Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley in exchange for her government’s support for the National Climate Plan, this proved a political loser.
On one side it mobilized environmentalists and climate activists into opposition. On the other it bought absolutely no political credit – not even a glimmer of gratitude – from Alberta for the Trudeau Liberals, or for Canadian taxpayers who were made to assume the $34-billion-plus liability on behalf of getting Alberta’s oil to foreign markets, not to speak of supporting the huge carbon footprint of the oilsands production. Perversely, it even seemed somehow to deepen Alberta enmity to all things Liberal, although the previous Conservative government, led by Calgary’s Stephen Harper, had despite its pro-development rhetoric managed to build not a single pipeline.
Indigenous relations: Reframing the discourse
Another focus of attention in the Trudeau years was Indigenous relations. If America is fixated on race relations given its long violent history of slavery and segregation, Canada’s terrible treatment of Native peoples looms as large here. Trudeau’s government did begin to go down the path of reconciliation with First Nations in a more serious way than any of its predecessors. Critics are quick to point out that rhetoric has exceeded reality in Trudeau’s reconciliation actions. Substantial amounts of money were directed to First Nations and priorities drawn. Unfortunately, Trudeau tended to make promises that in their full scope went unrealized.
The promise to end all water advisories on reserves was dramatic, but by the time of Trudeau’s resignation some three dozen advisories remained. Yet well over a hundred had indeed been ended, with lives on those reserves made easier. The intent was admirable but the devil was, as so often, in the details; problems remained intractable despite good will. Still, the reframing of the discourse at the governance level is itself of historic significance, something that many First Nations leaders readily acknowledge – especially when government language and actions are seen in conjunction with court decisions that in recent decades have become more supportive of Indigenous claims. There is a paradigm shift at work here and the Trudeau government at least made itself more of the solution than the problem.
Calm leadership in times of crisis
Governments rarely get to choose their agendas according to their own preferences, but more often have agendas thrust upon them. As Harold Macmillan famously put it, what really directs governments is “events, dear boy, events.” Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister faced some grave unanticipated crises and, it has to be said, performed well under stress.
The most serious one was the COVID-19 pandemic, which of course was a global crisis challenging governments everywhere. In this context, under Trudeau’s cool and calm leadership, Canada’s record stands up well against background conditions of scientific uncertainty, unprecedented economic lockdown and millions of deaths worldwide, not to speak of erratic behaviour from some provinces. The Globe and Mail grumpily awarded the Liberal government the Olympic Gold Medal for its acquisition and rollout of vaccines. In that chaotic time, mistakes were made of course. But overall, and especially in relation to the two countries closest to Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., the Liberal record of coping with a formidable shape-shifting threat was not bad, all things considered. The Canadian per capita death rate from COVID-19 was two and a half times less than the rate in the United States.
Another crisis thrust upon the country was Donald Trump’s first-term effort to upend NAFTA at the expense of Canada and Mexico. Trudeau’s negotiators under Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland were able to secure a revised deal that minimized damage to Canada. Trudeau did not carry out the negotiations – credit for that has to go to Freeland. But he did preside over a successful negotiation and, it should be noted, made sure that the negotiating team did not just include big business interests but also representatives of labour and other stakeholders. The irony, of course, is that Canada was indeed so successful that a vengeful Trump in his second term has set out to wreck everything secured by Canada during his first term as contrary to his America First mantra.
The final crisis arose out of the pandemic crisis, as a kind of perverse offshoot or collateral damage from the pandemic. The “Freedom Convoys” that blockaded Canada-U.S. borders and occupied downtown Ottawa in 2022 began as an ostensible protest against vaccine mandates but quickly escalated into a Canadian version of the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol (funded from many of the same sources) – a far-right challenge to the very legitimacy of the Trudeau Liberal government.
When the unwillingness or inability of the municipal and provincial policing and political authorities to put an end to the Ottawa occupation became all too apparent, Trudeau controversially invoked a “public order emergency” under the never before used Emergencies Act. The strict legality of that invocation is still being adjudicated in the courts, but as public policy it was a brilliant success: under federal direction, the occupation was dispersed without injury on either side and emergency powers were revoked after a handful of days. The government was unusually transparent in making unredacted cabinet deliberations and secret communications available publicly to a commission of inquiry, and Trudeau acquitted himself admirably in lengthy bravura public testimony before the commission, coolly and patiently explaining the rationale for and necessity of emergency powers.
These qualities – not always on display over his decade in office – were once more on public view in his last days as leader, now facing the existential threat that Trump has posed to annex Canada into his emergent American fascist autocracy. Previously publicly insulted by the rogue President – joining a hall of honour including Ukrainian president and war hero Volodymyr Zelensky – Trudeau rose to the occasion in a moving account of Canada’s historical record of standing beside America in war and peace and of the sacrifices Canadians would make to preserve their sovereign nation. As if in late recognition, Trudeau’s last approval rating began rising once again.
Trudeau’s record is marred by many failures, of which ample evidence has been offered by others. It is far too early to authoritatively place him in relation to other prime ministers of the past, including his own father. But it is well to remember that historical ledgers usually have two sides: liabilities but also assets.
