Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to announce his resignation in the coming days, according to the newspaper The Globe and Mail and news agencies Reuters and Bloomberg.
Trudeau (53) has been under pressure from members of his party to resign for months. That pressure has only increased since Chrystia Freeland, his finance minister, resigned on December 16 because she and the prime minister disagreed on policy.
After the split with Freeland, some of Trudeau’s closest advisers believed the prime minister would not survive the political fallout, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News. More than 20 Liberal lawmakers have publicly called for Trudeau’s departure, and more have said in private meetings that the prime minister has no choice but to go.
The prime minister has also largely disappeared from the public eye since Freeland posted her scathing resignation letter. Trudeau spent much of the holiday at a ski resort in western Canada and has not spoken to reporters since.
Sources told The Globe and Mail, among others, that Trudeau had not finalized his decision to step down but would make an announcement by Wednesday when Liberal lawmakers hold a meeting of their party convention.