Assessing the Trudeau record, real and imagined

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he was stepping down as Liberal leader on Monday following months of speculation and mounting pressure from colleagues and opponents alike. The government remains in power, but all parliamentary activity — from existing bills to committee work — has ground to a stop.

There is much to say about the decision and its timing, not least because of the political uncertainty it creates at a volatile moment for Canada. We are only days away from Donald Trump assuming the U.S. presidency with promises to use “economic force” to bring Canada in line with his will. 

Trudeau’s resignation also most certainly advances the timing of the next election, perhaps to this spring. It remains to be seen whether his exit will be enough to right the Liberal ship, trailing badly in public opinion polls. 

This is the time, as Canada considers its future, to take stock of the Trudeau government’s nine years in power, to assess the successes and failures of paths chosen. As detailed in our new book, The Trudeau Record: Promise versus Performance, the Trudeau government’s notable policy achievements are easy to point out. But so are the half-measures and promises not fulfilled.

The realpolitik of governing in Canada

During his departure speech, Trudeau said he most regrets not reforming Canada’s antiquated first-past-the-post voting system, despite earning a large mandate to do so in 2015. The government fell short on many other files as well — including the failure to end boil water advisories on reserves, creating a more progressive tax system, containing rising greenhouse gas emissions and reforming Employment Insurance. 

More positively, Trudeau’s government significantly advanced the cause of affordable childcare, renewed investment in housing, came through for workers with substantial income support during the COVID-19 pandemic and an enhanced Canada Child Benefit, updated human rights and labour legislation, and made a sustained effort to reframe the Crown’s relations with First Nations.

What explained the gap between promise and performance? 

Certainly, international and domestic events shaped the Trudeau record in fundamental ways, as you would expect of any government. The most notable external constraint on government policy was the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which by the end of 2023 had killed more than 52,000 people in Canada. The response to the pandemic consumed the efforts of the government through much of 2020 and 2021. 

The Trudeau government also found itself facing an assertive, bipartisan ‘America First’ agenda under the Trump and Biden presidencies. Almost immediately upon forming government in late 2015, Trudeau, his cabinet and U.S.-based diplomats were taken up with saving the North American Free Trade Agreement. 

Trudeau and his now former deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, managed to renegotiate a deal under the duress of high steel and aluminum tariffs. When the Biden administration shifted the trade narrative again — through major investments in domestic renewable energy, silicon chip and electric vehicle manufacturing — the Trudeau government was compelled to respond in turn with billions in investment incentives (in EV batteries, for example). 

Long-standing domestic tensions likewise constrained the policy options and tools available to the government. The provinces and territories have consistently challenged federal overtures in health care, dental care, child care and the environment over the years. 

Policy choices and ideological baggage

The gap between promises and performance is, in part, a consequence of implacable institutional, geopolitical or economic constraints, but it is also the result of policy choices freely made that could not have hoped to deliver on their stated goals. Faced with overlapping crises of global proportions, the Trudeau government proved willing to use the spending powers of the state, yet consistently favoured policies and programs designed to bolster profits in the private sector and socialize risk. 

On climate, the Trudeau record would be called “groundbreaking” were it not for his government’s continued support for oil and gas extraction at home and environmentally and socially devastating mineral extraction projects abroad. New pipelines were completed (and outright purchased), allowing more of Canada’s highly polluting, largely foreign-owned bitumen resources to reach tidewater. 

Carbon pricing and energy investment tax credits (corporate subsidies) for carbon capture and storage have done little to lower emissions. But they provided an easy target for right-wing agitation about “freedom” from “woke” environmentalism. Political opposition to the “carbon tax” has intensified over time to the point that it now threatens the Liberal Party’s future and the pursuit of the larger climate agenda.  

Similarly, on the housing file, the government’s initiatives have helped ameliorate conditions modestly, but they do not fundamentally challenge the financialization of housing — housing as an investment vehicle for the wealthy versus a place to live — the main source of skyrocketing rents and house prices. 

Questions about what the Trudeau government has substantially achieved are nowhere more important than with respect to the Liberals’ promises in 2015 to forge a new relationship with Indigenous Peoples. By the end of Trudeau’s first majority, the Liberal government had passed or proposed 16 pieces of legislation directly impacting Indigenous Peoples. In many instances, though, follow-through was inadequate or non-existent. 

The next chapter

There is no doubt that institutional factors and external pressures limited Trudeau’s policy options. The government’s ideological leanings, and the ongoing influence of corporate interests in Ottawa, played an equally significant role in hindering progress. Where situations called for pragmatism and creative use of state powers, the government often fell back on free-market economic dogma to deliver on its big promises. 

The sustained popularity of the more progressive parts of the Trudeau record, however, is instructive. This includes the introduction of a modest pharmacare plan and public dental care for those not covered by private plans, significant investments in child care, Indigenous services and housing, the passage of a poverty reduction act, the legalization of cannabis, and expanded conservation programs.  

Even at the height of the pandemic, Canadians firmly supported vaccine mandates and public health restrictions to protect them against the unknown Coronavirus. Popular support for the government didn’t begin to slide until inflation took off in 2022 — a result of the supply chain shocks from COVID-19, not government spending — and accessing health care and housing became increasingly difficult. 

Declining support for the Liberal Party should not be confused with declining support for progressive policies that create communities where all can thrive. This is important to remember as Canada positions itself for the economic fight ahead, drawing on the lessons of the Trudeau record and hopefully embracing more effective strategies for pursuing the public good. 

For an authoritative review of Justin Trudeau’s tenure, see The Trudeau Record: Promise v. Performance, published in October by Lorimer. Edited by Katherine Scott, Stuart Trew and Laura Macdonald, 25 independent experts weigh in on the Trudeau government’s promises and performance.

Katherine Scott is a Senior Researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and serves as the director for its gender equality public policy work. 

Stuart Trew is a Senior Researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives where he directs the Trade and Investment Research Project.