On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation to avoid a revolt from his Liberal lawmakers amid over a year of disastrous polling. Parliament is now suspended until March and Trudeau will stay on until the Liberals pick a new leader. But while the country is entering a brief period of limbo, one thing is all but certain.
A man who has drawn comparisons to Donald Trump will become Canada’s Prime Minister.
Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, is on track to decisively win an election expected this Spring and bring the Trudeau era to an end. The Conservatives are up by more than 20 points in the polls, amid deep anger over the cost-of-living crisis and other issues that have recently toppled incumbents across the West.
Read More: How Canada Fell Out of Love With Trudeau
Should Poilievre win his expected majority in Parliament, he will have the run of the joint. Canadian Prime Ministers are famously—or infamously—powerful in such situations.
No Canadian Prime Minister is an absolute monarch—they face modest restraints from their caucus, the courts, opposition in the House of Commons, the Senate, interest groups, and the people of Canada themselves—but in practice they can get away with an awful lot between elections. The Westminster “whip system” is unique for its strength and it means that Poilievre will have at least four years in which his soldiers are lined up firmly behind him—just as Trudeau once did. He’ll enjoy that power as long as he remains popular—just as Trudeau once did.
Poilievre is a bare-knuckle brawler of a politician who means what he says and says what he believes to be true. He’s a lifelong conservative, a true believer, and a deep ideologue in the make and mold of the Reagan era. He’s committed to a 1980s-style tough on crime program, the sort that’s proven time and again to fail. He’s doubtless about the power of the free market and utterly committed to…
