It was a humiliating affair that confirmed, to my mind at least, that Trudeau had forfeited the privilege of holding any public office, let alone the prime minister’s office.
True to infantile form, Trudeau and company weathered the brief storm by having the jejune prime minister issue a succession of vacuous, unconvincing apologies that compounded his disgrace.
Perhaps the episode that best established Trudeau’s essential character – and, not surprisingly, has escaped the attention of both his devoted supporters and apoplectic detractors in the corporate media and beyond – was his shameful volte-face to desert injured Palestinian children.
Anyone, at any time, who reneges on a promise to help the innocent victims of war to appease racists and xenophobes in and outside parliament is a contemptible hypocrite.
Justin Trudeau did just that, turning his sorry back on children in desperate need. That obscenity will forever stain his legacy.
As I explained in several columns, while the Liberal leader sitting in opposition, Trudeau openly and repeatedly threw his imprimatur behind an initiative organised by the celebrated Palestinian Canadian, Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish, called Heal100Kids.
Dr Abuelaish had enlisted the support of provincial politicians, doctors, nurses, hospitals and other volunteers to arrange to have 100 wounded Palestinian children – accompanied by members of their immediate families – travel to Canada for treatment to mend their damaged minds, bodies, and spirits.
After Trudeau won a majority in 2015, Dr Abuelaish – who has endured the killing by invading Israeli forces of three of his daughters and a niece in Gaza in 2009 with remarkable grace – made several public and private overtures to have Trudeau keep his word.
Trudeau never responded.
Dr Abuelaish – a distinguished man not prone to hyperbole – told me that Trudeau was a liar and that history would judge his betrayal harshly.
He is right on both counts.
Trudeau has betrayed others for other telling reasons.
He betrayed his so-called “feminist” credentials when he fired female ministers, including an Indigenous colleague, for daring to challenge him at the cabinet table or defending the rule of law.
As I wrote in September 2023, the supposed “champion” of climate “action”, bought a floundering oil pipeline for 4.5 billion Canadian dollars ($3.3bn).
The supposed “champion” of human rights and the rules-based international “order”, tried, with a little help from his insurrectionist-friendly friends in Brazil, to install a malleable marionette in Venezuela.
The supposed “champion” of the plight of hurting “ordinary” Canadians, allowed predatory corporate monopolies to continue to reap extraordinary earnings while the divide between the uber-wealthy and the other, much less fortunate 99 percent, mushroomed.
Despite the anguished rhetoric of amnesiacs in the House of Commons and newsrooms across Canada, Trudeau’s departure is not evidence of a national “crisis” or that the capital is gripped by “chaos” or “paralysis”.
It is further proof that, given the inexorable cycle of politics, prime ministers – Liberal or Conservative – have a natural life expectancy.
Trudeau’s Conservative predecessor, Stephen Harper, lasted a little shy of 10 years as prime minister before voters soured on him.
Harper’s Liberal predecessor, Jean Chretien, spent a decade as prime minister before voters soured on him.
Chretien’s Conservative predecessor, the late Brian Mulroney, also held office for approaching a decade before, you guessed it, voters soured on him.
I suspect the same fate awaits current Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, who looks poised – if the consensus among pollsters is accurate – to win a handsome majority during the next federal election that is likely to occur in the spring.
In the meantime, frantic Liberals will choose an eager sacrificial lamb – not named Trudeau – to take on the repellent, schtick-addicted Poilievre in a futile effort to stave off the inevitable.
So, to borrow a phrase made famous by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, “welcome to” 2025, Justin.
Good riddance to you.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
