Adieu, Mr. Trudeau and farewell to your ‘sunny ways’

In the depths of a bitterly cold and snowy January this year, Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister for nearly a decade, reluctantly decided to resign—a tacit admission that the sun was setting on his “sunny ways,” the mantra that propelled him to office in 2015.

In the depths of a bitterly cold and snowy January this year, Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister for nearly a decade, reluctantly decided to resign — a tacit admission that the sun was setting on his “sunny ways,” the mantra that propelled him to office in 2015. Those “sunny ways” were tested early and often, many times by Trudeau himself and for that reason his legacy is likely to be a complicated one. He could not have predicted that in his last weeks as prime minister, it would be US President Donald Trump who would help him burnish that legacy. From defiantly posting, “You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game,” after Canada defeated the US in the National Hockey League 4 Nations Face-Off, to pointedly telling the US president that his threatened tariffs would be “a very dumb thing to do,” Trudeau stood up for Canada in a way that even his fiercest critics could appreciate. Last week, he demonstrated Canadian antipathy toward Trump and his policies. With a diverse crowd behind him and babies babbling in their parents’ arms, Trudeau held true to his progressive ideals announcing billions of dollars for government-subsidized childcare in one of his final policy announcements “On a personal level, I’m made sure that every single day in this office, I’ve put Canadians first, that I have people’s backs and that’s why I’m here to tell you all that we got you even in the very last days of this government we will not let Canadians down today and long into the future,” he said, showing uncommon emotion, tears brimming in his eyes, a lump clearly in his throat.