OTTAWA, Canada— With Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement on Monday morning that he will step down as Liberal Party leader, whoever succeeds him will face Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre, whose Conservative Party has nearly three times the support of committed voters (47% compared to 18% for the Liberals) in this year’s general election.

First elected to the House of Commons in 2004, 45-year-old, Calgary-born Poilievre, 45, became leader of the Canadian Conservatives in 2022 and has seen his party grow in popularity as Canadians have grown tired of 53-year-old Trudeau, whose Liberals formed government in 2015.

“Bring home the Canadian dream” has been one of the Conservatives’ major themes, and Poilievre has cast the Liberals as governing with ‘an extremely radical ideology,’ which he described as “basically authoritarian socialism,” in a recent 90-minute interview with popular podcast host Jordan Peterson.

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“People are sick and tired of grandiosity,” said Poilievre. “Horrendous, utopian wokeism” serves, he said, “egotistical personalities on top,” rather than “common people.”

Trudeau has said that Poilievre wants to “make Canada great again,” comparing the Tory leader to incoming U.S. President Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” mantra.

But while Poilievre’s populist messaging has generated comparisons to Trump’s political approach, the Canadian Conservative leader has pushed back the president-elect’s recent comments about making Canada the 51st state.

“I have the strength and the smarts to stand up for this country and my message to incoming President Trump is that first and foremost, Canada will never be the 51st state of the U.S.,” Poilievre said in an interview with Canadian broadcaster, CTV News, before Christmas.

Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with media outside Rideau Cottage on Monday, Jan. 6, in Ottawa. (AP/Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

The incoming Trump administration will almost assuredly deal with a Poilievre government as the Conservatives are poised to win the next Canadian election, which could come as early as this spring. When the House of Commons resumes sitting on March 24, the opposition parties are likely to defeat the minority Liberal government in a vote of no-confidence, which would trigger a national vote.

In his Peterson interview, Poilievre acknowledged that Trump — who has proposed a 25% tariff against Canadian exports — “negotiates very aggressively, and he likes to win.” But as prime minister, the Conservative leader said that he would seek “a great deal that will make both countries safer, richer and stronger.”

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Canada Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre holds a news conference in a hotel ballroom in Ottawa, on Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024.  (ustin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

Poilievre said that he would accelerate approvals to build oil refineries, liquefied natural gas plants and nuclear facilities, and increase its electricity surplus with the U.S.

He also told Peterson that Canada sells its oil and gas to the U.S. at “enormous discounts,” which he characterized as a “ripoff,” in which “Canada is ripping itself off.”

A Poilievre-led government would also embark on “the biggest crackdown on crime in Canadian history” and that “habitual offenders will not get out of jail anymore,” the Conservative leader said.

On foreign affairs, the Canadian Conservatives’ 2023 policy document states that it would, as government, “take the required steps to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S. to close the gaps relating to illegal entries in Canada,” and that the Conservative Party recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Canada’s embassy in Israel is currently in Tel Aviv.

Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
|Photo: David Kawai/Bloomberg via Getty Images.  Canadian opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, (R)
Photo: Graham Hughes/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Getty Images)

In a statement released in response to Trudeau’s resignation on Monday, Poilievre said that “this changes nothing” and that a Conservative Canadian government would “take back control of our border, take back control of immigration, take back control of spending, deficits and inflation. Take back control of our streets by locking up criminals, banning drugs, treating addiction and stopping gun smugglers.”

The Conservatives, added Poilievre, “would secure borders, rearm our forces, restore our freedom and put Canada First.”

The quiet proceeding contrasts with efforts by Trump’s own supporters to overturn his 2020 loss by storming the US Capitol.

The United States Congress has certified Donald Trump’s victory in November’s presidential election, clearing a final hurdle for his return to the White House later this month.

Monday’s ceremony in Congress officially validated the 2024 Electoral College results.

Overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s main rival in the election, the event passed quickly and with little fanfare.

“Today was obviously a very important day,” Harris, who also serves as the president of the Senate, said in remarks afterwards.

“It was about what should be the norm and what the American people should be able to take for granted, which is that one of the most important pillars of our democracy is that there will be a peaceful transfer of power.”

The largely procedural affair marked a stark contrast with the last time Congress convened to certify Electoral College votes, on January 6, 2021.

During that ceremony, thousands of Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in an effort to overturn then-President Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.

Lawmakers were forced to evacuate as doors were smashed, police officers were attacked and one protester was shot to death while trying to enter a chamber through a broken window.

The attack took place after Trump held a rally nearby on the Ellipse, a park south of the White House, where he reiterated false claims that the election had been stolen through massive fraud.

Critics roundly condemned the attack as an assault on democracy, and the US Department of Justice has since charged 1,583 participants with federal crimes.

As of Monday, approximately 1,009 have pleaded guilty, with 327 offering guilty pleas to felony charges.

Trump himself faced two criminal indictments for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election results: A federal case in Washington, DC, was recently dismissed, while a state-level case in Georgia is stalled but ongoing.

Nevertheless, four years later, Trump is set to return to power on the heels of his most successful presidential campaign to date.

In November, Trump won 312 Electoral College votes to Harris’s 226 and became the first Republican candidate to win the popular vote since 2004.

Trump’s Republican Party will also take control of Congress after winning majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Many in the party have since embraced the Republican leader’s false claims about the 2020 election.

“Congress certifies our great election victory today – a big moment in history. MAGA!” Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social on Monday, using an acronym for his slogan, “Make America Great Again”.

Harris, meanwhile, urged respect for the tenets of US democracy. She cited Monday’s peaceful certification as an example of the right way forward.

“I do believe very strongly that America’s democracy is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it,” she said. “Otherwise it is very fragile, and it will not be able to withstand moments of crisis.”