In the aftermath of a major historical event, the causative chain that produced it is often shrouded in mystery. The real drivers are almost always impossible to discover in real time. Clarity only emerges decades later, when long-classified documents are finally released from the archives, illuminating what truly transpired.
But sometimes, history doesn’t make us wait. This is undeniably true of the recent announcement by our 23rd Prime Minister to resign his office this past week.
No sane human being on planet Earth is asking: “Why?” or “How?” They’re asking, “What the hell took him so long?” And maybe that’s the question only the historians can solve. But, at the moment, it doesn’t matter in the least.
What matters is that this country is staring down the barrel of existential threats. And to appreciate their magnitude, we only need to put two things side by side.
One. We are facing the greatest threat to our sovereignty and prosperity in generations.
Two. We are currently led by a lame-duck Prime Minister who the majority of Canadians have exactly zero confidence in to lead us — let alone guide us through the storm. Whose perhaps final decision of consequence — to prorogue Parliament — has plunged our nation into a state of paralysis.
Trudeau’s resignation has left a vacuum for genuine, popularly supported, leadership in this country.
So, what happens next? Who steps up in this moment of historic challenge?
It’s a painfully familiar feeling: just when you need something the very most, you find it’s hiding from you. Right now, I wish I meant my car keys.
The simple fact is that in our hour of greatest need, we need our greatest people to lead us. And in the wake of the fallout to Justin Trudeau’s resignation and Trump’s very real threat of economic war, this is what concerns me: that many of our best and brightest will succumb to the temptation to bury their heads in the sand and pretend this is all a dream.
It’s not. It’s anything but a dream. And nothing is a foregone conclusion.
Leadership is not a title; it’s behaviour. It is how you act. It is what you do. And it is what you are prepared to sacrifice for the good of your country.
Fortunately, across jurisdictional and partisan lines we’ve seen examples of just that. Premier Doug Ford is going into the snake pit on Fox News. Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc has decided it’s better to focus his attention on the threat of U.S. tariffs than his personal ambitions to become Liberal leader. Former central banker Mark Carney, on the other hand, who could certainly be spending his time doing something less grueling than politics is expected to throw his hat into the ring. These are commendable actions, but we need far more — and not just from our politicians.
In a recent interview with Jordan Peterson, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre underlined that Canadians cannot assume, “by simply voting in an election that … all the problems are going to reverse instantaneously.”
That’s neither cynicism nor mere expectation management. It’s an acknowledgment of reality. National challenges aren’t solved at the ballot box alone — they’re solved by extraordinary people stepping up, not just in politics, but in every corner of public life.
Trump himself said he does not care who wins our next federal election. What he does care about is pretty clear: beating us.
That kind of pressure can drive a country into despair, numbing it with a fatalistic sense of inevitability. Or it can do the opposite. It can light a fire. It can inspire resilience, defiance, and the will to fight back.
The most critical question we ought to be asking in this historic moment is not whether Trudeau deserved the slings and arrows or how his legacy will take shape. That will be a rigidly partisan, tiresome tug of war.
The real question is where do we go from here and who rises to the occasion?
“History never looks like history when you are living through it,” so the saying goes. Except when it does. This week, many Canadians woke up to the realization that they are living through a turning point. The Prime Minister’s resignation isn’t the end of the story. It’s the prologue to one of the most challenging chapters in our history.
Now comes the hard part.
