Lakehead College political science professor and division chair weighs in on the prime minister’s resignation.
THUNDER BAY — A Lakehead College political scientist says that given Justin Trudeau’s lengthy tenure as prime minister, his resignation was unsurprising.
When discussing Canadian politics with buddies, colleagues and fellow residents, Dr. Toby Rollo, a LU professor and chair of the political science division mentioned he all the time tries to remember the fact that the following prime minister, in the event that they keep in energy lengthy sufficient, is inevitably going additionally to be affected by scandal, financial declines and the identical kinds of issues that Trudeau has encountered.
“Though it’s uncertain that the following prime minister must take care of one other pandemic,” mentioned Rollo. “Hopefully.”
“It’s hard to really assuage people’s feelings about Trudeau. He was in power for a decade and, during which time, any leader of any party is going to amass scandals and failures and be held responsible for economic issues during that time, some of which are out of their control, some of which are in their control,” mentioned Rollo.
Going ahead, Rollo hopes residents don’t put an excessive amount of religion in Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives being radically completely different from Trudeau and the Liberals.
He mentioned he’s involved that for all Trudeau and the Liberal’s failings, there’s not a lot they’d have completed in another way than a Conservative Social gathering in an analogous scenario.
“Effectively policy-wise they’re going to appear virtually identical with maybe some exceptions, having to do with moving the carbon tax around or something like that and some other cosmetic issues. All in all, though, the two parties’ policy-wise have historically for the last few decades at least been fairly similar,” mentioned Rollo.
Trudeau introduced he would resign as Liberal Chief and step down as prime minister on Monday.
“It was kind of predictable and it was expected,” mentioned Rollo.
“It was pretty clear the Liberal Party wasn’t going to be able to move forward and have any chance of electoral success with Trudeau being at the head of the party, given that he’s so unpopular right now.”
Rollo defined that the polls at the moment recommend that the Liberal authorities doesn’t have a likelihood of getting re-elected this 12 months.
However, he added, ‘anything could happen.’
“My suspicion is that the Liberal government is going to try to pick a leader who can go toe-to-toe with Pierre Poilievre and that they’re going to probably try to associate the Conservative Party with the upcoming Trump presidency in the U.S. in order to cast the Conservatives in less appealing light for voters,” mentioned Rollo.
Rollo mentioned there’s additionally an opportunity the Liberals may really do higher than they’re projected to carry out, if Poilievre commits a serious fake pas or has a public gaffe along with the Liberals electing new management.
Nonetheless, he mentioned ‘the chances are slim.’
“It’s likely that the Conservatives are going to have at least a minority government moving forward,” mentioned Rollo.
Within the meantime, Rollo mentioned Parliament might be prorogued till the tip of March, so there could be no efficient authorities till then.
A prorogation, he defined, implies that parliament is suspended, which prime ministers will usually do strategically to let criticism cool off, when there is a scandal or generally it is used legitimately simply to droop Parliament for any variety of points.
Nonetheless, he mentioned Parliament ‘all the time reconvenes, pretty shortly.’
“They will face confidence votes once Parliament is back in session in late March, at which point we could probably expect the government to fail … and an election to be called, so there’s not much of a future for this particular government,” mentioned Rollo.
