Trudeau may be gone but the wind is still in the sails of the Conservative Party. Photo courtesy Pierre Poilievre/X.

It would hardly be groundless pessimism to conclude that a majority Conservative government headed by Pierre Poilievre is an overwhelming possibility for the next Canadian election. The polls clearly and consistently confirm it. Ipsos now gives the Conservatives a 25 percent lead over the Liberals, reflecting the fact that the stormy resignation of Chrystia Freeland has made the situation even worse than it already was.

The long delayed but inevitable decision of Justin Trudeau to relinquish the leadership of his party can only be considered a salvage operation. Replacing him was essential and the hastily improvised effort to select another leader will offer some justification for the prorogation of Parliament until March, but none of this will be enough to save the Liberals. This manoeuvre will just delay a looming parliamentary reckoning for a couple of months. It is highly unlikely that a new leader, drawn from a rather discredited pool, could even come close to reversing the decisive lead that the Conservatives have established. Throwing Trudeau overboard will at best enable the Liberals to secure the role of Official Opposition, but even that is far from certain.

It is clear from initial media reports that Poilievre has no desire to be gracious and that he will use every opportunity to ensure that Trudeau’s unpopularity is transferred to whomever takes his place. After a decade of increasingly discredited Liberal governments this may not be such a difficult political task. Trudeau is gone but the wind is still in the sails of the Conservative Party.

The Liberals have exceeded their shelf life as a governing party, but their decline is also part of an international trend where the political centre finds it harder and harder to hold off challenges from the populist right. The inability of the Biden-Harris administration to forge an effective alternative to Trump is an obvious case in point. The Conservatives in Canada are poised to benefit from Trump’s victory.

A regime with Poilievre at the helm will certainly be determined to impose a brand of hard-right politics. In........

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