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Why Canadians are tired of Justin Trudeau
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Why is Mexico's judiciary overhaul controversial?
Main reason is it means the judiciary is going to be less independent and much more politicized. They're going to be elected, these judges. They're going to have shorter terms. They're going to be aligned with whoever happens to be in political power. That is the intention. That's why AMLO, outgoing president, wanted this judiciary reform to get done and not be changed. But not only does that undermine rule of law and means that his preferences, his party's preferences will likely also be that of the judiciary. But also, especially in a country where there are very, very strong gangs associated with drugs, any place where they have strong governance, they'll be able to also ensure that the judges are the ones that they want, and that is a horrible development for rule of law in a country whose democratic institutions frankly aren't very consolidated. So, it's a problem and it's going to hurt the Mexican economy, hurt the investment climate.
After losing another parliamentary seat, is Justin Trudeau's time as Canada's leader coming to an end?
Certainly. Sometimes you stay a little longer than your performance merits. This is certainly the case for Trudeau. The people are tired of him. They don't feel the country's heading in the right direction. Major problems in terms of inflation, especially real estate, housing costs, lack of availability of housing, and just people wanting something different. We've seen that all over the world with elections over the last year. We're going to see it in Canada in the coming months.
2.5 years in, and 1 million now dead or injured. Is Russia's invasion of Ukraine any closer to resolution?
I'd say it's closer to resolution insofar as the Ukrainians increasingly know that it's getting harder for them to field troops, to fight, to defend their territory. That's why the risk, the risky attack inside Russian territory, which they probably can't hold, but certainly has meant that they're going to lose more territory in Ukraine. Also, certainly you talk to NATO leaders, they understand that the time for negotiations, the time for trying to wrap up the war and freeze the conflict, a ceasefire, at least, if not a negotiated settlement is soon. So, I'd be surprised if the war is still going with the level of intensity in a year as it is right now, but the Ukrainians are not going to get their land back. And what that means and what kind of guarantees they get from the West, including security guarantees potentially, certainly Ukraine very hopeful for an actual formal NATO invitation, which they don't have at this point. That is the state of negotiations happening between the Ukrainians and others.
Carney agrees to lace up his skates
After a summer of discontent, an isolated and struggling Justin Trudeauannounced Monday that he has persuaded a superstar to finally lace up his skates and join the struggling Liberals on the ice.
Mark Carney, who has until now been watching from the stands, occasionally offering helpful critiques, will chair a task force on economic growth for Trudeau and help write the party’s platform. This is plainly good news since Carney is an expert economist, and the Canadian economy has been lagging even as the population rapidly expands. Trudeau’s situation is so dire, however, that insiders wonder if he will have to hang up his skates and make Carney the captain before it’s game over.
But Trudeau needed a plan to share with his MPs, who had gathered in Nanaimo, British Columbia, for the first time since his party lost a byelection in what should have been a safe Toronto seat back in June.
Time to go?
One MP has said publicly that Liberal politicians are hearing the same thing pollsters are: that Canadians want Trudeau to leave.
An insider with deep roots in the party says many other MPs have told Trudeau the same thing privately over the summer. “They told him, ‘Great record, great accomplishments,’ pumped his tires. ‘But you should go.’ He said the same thing to them all. ‘Thanks very much, but I disagree.’”
For two years, fearsome Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has led in the polls. A poll this week shows him 20 points ahead, which would lead to an electoral wipeout for the Liberals in the electoral reckoning ahead.
Trudeau may not be able to postpone that reckoning for long. A week ago, the left-leaning NDP withdrew its support in Parliament, saying it could no longer prop up the “radioactive” Trudeau. Trudeau does not face an immediate vote in the House, and he can hope to get through confidence votes with the support of either the NDP or the separatist Bloc Quebecois, but he is in for a tense autumn.
The omens are not good. He was recently publicly chewed out by an irate steel worker. His campaign director has quit, apparently in despair at the party’s prospects with Trudeau at the helm. Veteran staffers are headed for the exit.
And it may get worse. Next Monday, the same day MPs return to Parliament, there will be a byelection in a downtown Montreal riding that should be safe for Trudeau. Polls show the Liberals are in a tight three-way race.
A good candidate, on paper
Carney’s new role has Liberals wondering if he could step in, as Kamala Harris did, and attempt a comeback. But Liberals are not sure.
On paper, few people are better qualified. Carney grew up in Alberta, went to Harvard on a hockey scholarship, and then went to work for Goldman Sachs before doing a doctorate at Oxford. He returned to Goldman Sachs, became an official in the Canadian Finance Department, and then governor of the Bank of Canada, earning praise for successfully guiding Canada through the 2008 financial crisis. In 2012, he became governor of the Bank of England – the first foreigner to hold the job – and guided the bank through Brexit, which he rightly warned would cause economic troubles.
Since then, he has been a UN climate envoy, pushing markets to better account for their emissions, and vice chairman of Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian investment fund.
Carney’s understanding of the economy, markets, and the green energy transition is world-class, but he is not quite a bloodless wonk. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated deft communication skills, showing sangfroid under withering attacks during Brexit, for example. But political operatives worry — based on long and bitter experience — that those skills may not easily transfer to the cutthroat world of partisan politics, where repetition, simplicity, and emotional resonance typically trump subtlety, precision, and elegance of expression.
Can he do it?
“How does this guy with a stellar CV translate that to domestic retail politics?” says Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group. “Does he know his way around a Tim Hortons in Red Deer? Can he do that? That, to me, is an open question.”
But Carney seems intent on getting on the ice. He is tying himself to the least popular politician in Canada for a reason.
“If he ever wants to run for the job, he can’t say no when people ask him for help, especially when it’s right in his field of expertise, and obviously the government could use it,” says someone familiar with the talks between Trudeau and Carney.
After all, if Trudeau does decide to heed the advice of those urging him to join Biden in retirement, Carney will be there, having freshly designed the economic platform for the next campaign.
It might not be a great strategy to put an untested rookie up against a bruiser like Poilievre late in the third period, but the Liberals are running out of time and options.
Canada's Minister of Finance Bill Morneau presents an Economic and Fiscal Snapshot in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada July 8, 2020.
Former finance minister has suggestions
Canada needs to think harder about aligning its policies with the United States if it doesn’t want to get left behind economically, former Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau has argued in an op-ed.
Morneau, who left Trudeau’s government under a cloud in 2020, criticized him in a book last year, complaining that he had had to “deliver economically illiterate political promises.” Morneau is now warning that one of the crowning achievements of the Trudeau government — the relationship with the United States — is at risk.
Trudeau was widely praised for his management of Donald Trump during the USMCA trade negotiations, but Morneau writes that Canada needs to change gears if it wants to stay on the good side of Uncle Sam. To maintain the trade relationship, Morneau writes, Canada needs to increase defense spending more quickly than promised. This, he says, requires “massive review of government expenditures and programs to free billions.”
Morneau also suggests changing other regulatory and tax policy to better align with America’s interests. In related news, Dave McKay, CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada — the country’s biggest – said Tuesday that Canada is on “the wrong path” in its relationship with the United States.
This hardening view from Bay Street suggests that many in the business world are ready to see the back of the current prime minister.
FILE PHOTO: A Kenyan police officer stands guard during a joint operation with Haitian police, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti July 29, 2024.
Blinken heads to Haiti as Kenyan force faces time crunch
US Secretary of State Antony Blinkenvisited Haiti for the first time on Thursday, underscoring American support for the struggling Caribbean government and the Kenyan-led security mission meant to stabilize the country. Nairobi sent special police officers to Haiti in late June as part of a UN-approved mission to bolster Haiti’s law enforcement and military against well-armed and organized gangs. The Kenyans have made significant strides alongside the Haitian National Police in securing key landmarks in the capital, Port-au-Prince, but they’re running short of money and time — the mission’s mandate is set to expire on Oct. 2 and would need to be renewed — and ordinary Haitians still face daily violence from gangs.
The US is considering requesting that the UN turn the Kenyan-led operation into a formal peacekeeping operation, which could avoid the need for renewals. The Kenyan commander Godfrey Otunge says the gangs’ days are numbered, but the other countries that pledged to send troops to back up his officers have not followed through. Otunge has only 400 of the 2,500 men who are supposed to be under his command.
The ad hoc nature of the mission contributes to the sluggishness: The UN took nearly a year to approve the mandate, and then Kenya took another nine months to get boots on the ground. During that time, gangs ousted PM Ariel Henry and solidified control over more than 80% of Port-au-Prince. By the time the Kenyans arrived, they only had three months left in their mandate. Redesignating it as a formal PKO could ease some time constraints and provide a formal mechanism for other countries to fulfill their troop pledges. We’re watching how the debate unfolds.Why are Canadians turning against immigration?
Canada has long been pro-immigration — so proudly so that harsh talk about limiting immigrant numbers has been a nonstarter for the public and politicians alike. That is changing.
A recent Leger poll found that 65% of Canadians believe the government has set immigration targets too high and will admit “too many” immigrants under its current plan. More than 75% say the number of newcomers is raising the cost of housing and health care, at 78% and 76%, respectively. And a June poll by Research Co. found that 44% of Canadians viewed immigration negatively — a 6% increase from last October — with nearly half wanting fewer immigrants.
Now, thanks to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s aggressive immigration plan — with rates that have outpaced housing starts, doctor availability, and job growth — the decades-old consensus is starting to fray, and American politics and policy may exacerbate the matter.
Temporary foreign worker backlash
The government’s temporary foreign worker program, or TFW, which brings in non-permanent residents to work, has stirred controversy for depressing wages. This is adding more stress to the pro-immigration consensus as Canadians are worried about the country’s capacity to welcome newcomers while facing crises in health care, housing, and, in some cases, employment.
Canada admitted nearly a quarter of a million temporary workers in 2023, almost double the number from five years ago. The immigrant unemployment rate was nearly 12% this spring, nearly double the 6.4% general rate.
Last week, Employment Minister Randy Boissonnaultannounced that as of Sept. 26, Canada would not allow businesses to apply for temporary foreign workers through the low-wage stream — jobs paying below the provincial median wage — in any big city where unemployment was above 6%. It allows exceptions for several industries, but employers will be limited to 10% of their workforce being filled by temporary foreign workers. The employment term is reduced from two years to one, and visitors may no longer apply for work permits inside Canada — a pandemic-era policy adopted in response to travel restrictions — but must apply from abroad.
The changes are expected to lower the number of temporary foreign workers by roughly 65,000.
Asylum-seeking on the rise
The TFW program isn’t the only concern in Canada — or the US. A rise in asylum-seekers moving south to the US from Canada caught the attention of the Biden administration. In February, the Canadian government reinstated a policy requiring visitors from Mexico to obtain a visa before entering the country. It had lifted the requirement in 2016, which led to an increase in asylum-seekers and irritated the White House.
The 2023-24 fiscal year has seen record-breaking numbers of irregular crossings from Canada into the US, with a high of over 18,600 encounters between American officials and migrants in May and nearly as many in June and July. US Customs and Border Patrol has already had nearly 127,000 encounters this year and is on track to surpass last year’s 147,666 encounters.
In the US, immigration and border policy are top ballot issues. Some voters are looking north and growing concerned about security along the world’s longest undefended border. The Biden administration has adopted stricter controls, lowering the number of asylum-seekers along the northern border through a series of deterrence measures and aligning northern border policy with its stricter southern counterpart.
Last year, Republicans talked about building a northern border wall, a silly notion that nonetheless prompted then-presidential hopeful Nikki Haley to claim that while the southern border is a routine concern, the northern border doesn’t get enough attention. In 2023, House Republicans created a Northern Border Security Caucus focused on human and drug trafficking.
Border politics shape US and Canadian elections
Republicans are attacking Democratic nominee Kamala Harris on the issue, though southern border encounters have declined. Harris has made getting tough on the border a key component of her campaign, promising “strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship,” as the Democrats move right on immigration and border security.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump routinely talks about his ill-defined mass deportation plan, which involves mobilizing the whole of government, including the National Guard, to round up migrants and return them home.
The “plan” has been criticized as unworkable, but even the possibility of mass deportations could lead to fear and panic. As Evan Dyer reports, the idea of the plan could generate a rush to the Canadian border, further complicating Canada’s tenuous immigration consensus.
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, whose party is up in the polls, says he would cut immigration and tie the number of newcomers to trends in housing, health care, and employment. He alleges the Liberals have “destroyed” the country’s immigration system. A July poll found that 27% of Canadians see it as a top issue – and 54% of those who do prefer the Conservative Party over Liberals.
Delicate balancing act
Pressure from several sources will make life difficult for the governing Liberals as they try to navigate the intersecting issues of immigration, the border, housing, health care, security, and foreign relations.
Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s global macro-geopolitics practice, says the political problem for the government is a need to navigate between those who worry immigration is too high, “primarily for economic reasons,” and constituencies that want to see more newcomers, including industry and universities, who rely on foreign nationals for labor and tuition fees.
Trudeau must manage the current and future US administration and a growing focus on border security, Thompson says, echoing that a Trump win “could result in a major problem on the Canadian border with increased numbers of irregular migrants being forced out of the United States.”
“The government is going to make somebody very unhappy here,” he says.
On Wednesday, the stakes for the Liberals got higher as the NDP, which is heavily pro-immigration, ended their parliamentary deal to back the governing party, raising the odds of an early federal election — and an end to what’s left of Trudeau’s sunny ways.An intelligent charging robot performs autonomous charging for an electric vehicle at the 2024 Bund Conference in Shanghai, China, September 5, 2024.
Canada follows US lead on EV tariffs, and China hits back
Following the lead of the Biden administration, in late August the Trudeau government placed tariffs of 100% on Chinese electric vehicles sold in Canada. China condemned the measure and this week launched an investigation into Canadian canola exports. China imports roughly 90% of the crop from Canada.
In late May, the Biden administration quadrupled its tariffs on Chinese EV imports, raising it to 100% as it alleged China was subsidizing its zero-emissions vehicle industry and unfairly undermining US auto companies. Canada has said the same.
China said it would retaliate against the US and, later, Canada for the EV tariffs and has started to make good on the tit-for-tat promise. Its US anti-dumping investigation has focused on chemicals used in making vehicles and electronics.
The trade war over cheap Chinese EVs may just be starting as countries struggle for market position and to protect domestic industries while consumers make the gradual switch from gas engines to electric in a bid to slow climate change.
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell leaves after a news conference at the Federal Reserve Building in Washington, U.S., December 14, 2022.
Bank of Canada cuts rates, again. Will the Fed follow?
On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada cut its key interest rate by a quarter point, lowering it to 4.25% – its third cut in a row. The cut was expected by economists and market watchers.
The Bank also signaled it is open to deeper cuts in the future, as much as 50 basis points. The decision comes as the country’s inflation rate fell to 2.5% in July.
Stateside, pressure is mounting on the Federal Reserve to cut rates, which currently sit between 5.25% and 5.5%. The July inflation rate was 2.9%. Last month, Fed Chair Jerome Powellhinted that a cut could be on the table in September. The next central bank meeting is Sept. 17-18.
The third consecutive rate cut in Canada and the growing probability that the Fed will follow suit suggests the rate of inflation is slowing and that the economies of both countries are tacking back toward a pre-pandemic normal.
The trend will be welcome news to incumbent Democrats in the US and Liberals in Canada, each of whom faces elections, with the presidential vote two months away and a federal election north of the border due by the fall of 2025.
On X, Prime Minister Justin Trudeaucalled the Canada rate cut “a strong signal that we’re going in the right direction.”Aerial footage shows raging wildfire in British Columbia of Canada on June 7, 2023.
HARD NUMBERS: Carbon cost of Canada’s wildfires, Ottawa to cut foreign worker quotas, Tax credits cause art glut, Harris opens up bigger lead over Trump, US home sales hit historic low
647: Canada’s historically hellish wildfires last year spewed 647 megatons of carbon into the atmosphere, according to a new study. To put that in perspective, that’s more than all the carbon emissions generated by every country in the world in 2022 except for China, India, and the US.
10: Ottawa will slash the share of low-wage temporary foreign workers that companies can hire by half, to 10%, starting in September. The move comes amid a broader push by the Canadian government to cut the large numbers of foreign workers and students who have entered the country in recent years, contributing to rising housing prices, unemployment, and allegations of abuse of foreign workers.
20 million: Generous tax credits for donations of art to accredited museums are costing the Canadian government about $20 million per year, according to a recent study. The incentives have also created a glut of art at major museums, which is pushing them to expand in order to be able to show more of their collections. The Art Gallery of Ontario, for example, is at work on a 40,000-square-foot expansion.
4: A new national poll shows Democratic party nominee Kamala Harris has quadrupled her advantage over Republican rival Donald Trump since late July, leading him by four points now. The IPSOS/Reuters survey also showed her leading among both women and Hispanic voters by 13 points each. Is this all just the result of the traditional “party convention bump,” or does it reflect a more structural shift in voters’ attitudes? Stay tuned.
23: There are troubles in the US housing market, where an index measuring the sales of previously owned homes fell to its lowest level in 23 years last month. The National Association of Realtors, which maintains the index, said high costs and uncertainty about the outcome of the US election played a role in dampening demand. For more on how Kamala Harris and Donald Trump would tackle housing shortages in the US, see our special report here.