Historian Ken Coates on how Trudeau is leaving at 'most troubled time you could imagine' for Arctic security

Historian Ken Coates pulls no punches when talking about Justin Trudeau's announcement this week that he would step down as Liberal leader and prime minister.

"This is not a way to run a country. And I think it's almost like Prime Minister Trudeau decided he'd do one last insult to the country for rejecting him," said Coates, who chairs the Yukon Arctic Security Advisory Council.

"It's kind of unprecedented that a prime minister would leave the country foundering, as he's done."

Coates is particularly interested in the Arctic region, where he says Canada has largely failed to effectively assert its sovereignty in recent decades — even amid growing global threats and a shifting political environment.

Coates spoke to Radio-Canada's Sarah Xenos about Trudeau's departure and what it might mean for security in Canada's North.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What impact will Trudeau's resignation, and the prorogation of Parliament, have on Arctic security?

We are in the most troubled time you could imagine, in terms of our security. And we have a new American president coming in who is quite assertive, quite demanding, and very angry with Canada for its under-performance on defence spending. We have a still-intense international environment, Russian aggressiveness, Chinese interest, uncertainty in a whole bunch of different areas.

And we have a situation where we're basically leaderless in the House of Commons and the Canadian Parliament. I know that the prime minister will still be officially the prime minister, but he has very little credibility, does not have the backing of the House, that's quite clear, does not have the backing of his own party, that's quite clear. And we're sending him off to negotiate in the worst possible circumstances you could imagine.

What kind of message does it send to the world, and what kind of impact does that have, in terms of making sure we have our place at the table?

So, recognize that the world is in considerable stress right now, and it isn't just the United States. We've got real problems in Germany, serious problems in France, obviously you have the Ukrainian situation and the European Union, and on and on. So the world is in a very, very tense time. And it's a time for statespeople to step up, people of real stature, real presence or real prominence, to sort of guide the world through these troubled times. We don't have very many, and we don't have one in Canada. 

Unfortunately, our prime minister's standing internationally has eroded dramatically over the last five years. The first couple of years when he was in office, he had a lot of credibility and charisma and attraction, and that has largely disappeared. 

We used to also be a country that was a really honest broker. Canada wasn't a superpower, we didn't have a big military, we weren't spending huge amounts on development assistance, but we cared a lot, and we were known to be sort of nonpartisan, and fair and just. We haven't lost that, people don't think badly of Canada — quite frankly, they don't think very much about Canada at all. 

And you know, we don't have a friend in India right now. We've got real serious problems, obviously, with Russia. We have problems now with the United States, that will be 95 per cent of our preoccupation for the next two months. So it's all we can focus on, is the United States. And those situations create vacuums, where other countries sort of move in and try to do things.