(Bloomberg) — Justin Trudeau will announce Monday morning he plans to resign as leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, according to a person familiar with the matter, triggering a contest to replace him as prime minister.
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Trudeau’s office has scheduled an announcement for 10:45 a.m. in Ottawa. He has been under pressure from elected lawmakers in his party to quit for months; that has only intensified since Chrystia Freeland, his finance minister, stepped down on Dec. 16, saying she and the prime minister were at odds on policy.
Trudeau will stay on as prime minister until his successor is chosen, said the person, speaking on condition they not be identified.
After the split with Freeland, some of Trudeau’s closest advisers held the view that the prime minister would be unable to survive the political fallout, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News. The news of his resignation was reported first by Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Freeland, new Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney are seen by political observers as candidates to replace him.
More than 20 Liberal members of parliament have publicly called for Trudeau’s departure, and even more have said in private meetings that the prime minister has no choice but to leave. The Liberals have 153 seats in the House of Commons, including Trudeau’s.
“The country could face instability, notably from an economic threat in the potential of a 25% US tariff on Canadian imports from the incoming administration,” said a recent letter sent to the prime minister by Kody Blois, who leads a group of Liberal members from the four easternmost provinces. “Simply put, time is of the essence,” Blois said, adding that it’s “not tenable for you to remain as the leader.”
The Canadian currency strengthened after an initial report by the Globe and Mail on Sunday that said Trudeau’s resignation is likely. “Traders may be buying the loonie on the view that the worst is over for Canadian politics after all the recent uncertainty,” said Ken Cheung, a strategist at Mizuho Bank.
The prime minister has largely disappeared from public view since Freeland posted her stinging resignation letter. Trudeau spent much of the holidays at a ski resort in western Canada and hasn’t spoken with reporters since returning to Ottawa.
If Trudeau, 53, does announce he intends to step down after nine years in power, it will kick off an internal party tussle over how to choose a successor. If he resigns immediately, the Liberals would likely select an interim leader from within its elected caucus.
However, it’s also possible Trudeau will decide to stay in office while Liberal Party members conduct a leadership race to choose his successor. The timeline for a party contest would have to be very tight, given the major opposition parties have said they intend to vote against the government in the next sitting of the House.
Parliamentary experts have said the government may only have until March before it would face a vote of non-confidence in the House.
The rules of the leadership race would also be hotly contested within the party. Freeland has been calling Liberal lawmakers and is widely expected to run for leader if the chance arises.
Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, may also run if it’s an open contest that doesn’t favor sitting lawmakers, said one person familiar with the matter. Trudeau had earlier courted Carney to enter cabinet as finance minister, a move that eventually led to Freeland’s resignation. Carney is the chair of Brookfield Asset Management and Bloomberg Inc., among other roles.
Members of Trudeau’s cabinet who are frequently mentioned in discussions about the party leadership include Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly; Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne; and Anita Anand, the minister in charge of transportation and internal trade.
All will have to calculate whether now is the right time to helm the Liberals. A new survey by Nanos Research, taken in late December, has the Conservative Party extending a huge lead going into an election year.
–With assistance from Ruth Carson.
(Updates with fourth paragraph on potential Liberal leadership candidates. An earlier version was corrected to include attribution to CBC in headline.)
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