What does Trudeau have to show after seven years in office?

In April 2013, Justin Trudeau was elected to lead the dying Liberal Party of Canada, and within a few short years, he had revived the organization and brought it to new heights. 

The Liberals won a knockout election in 2015 that handed them five years in power with a mandate to enact the most socially progressive agenda the nation had ever seen. 

It was on the back of Trudeau's agenda that he saw some of his greatest successes in government as well as some of his greatest political failures, let's take a look at some of the most memorable. 

Trudeau made 353 promises while he was on the campaign trail in 2015 and he kept roughly 92% of those commitments according to an independent assessment created by a group of Canadian academics that was reported on by BBC News in October 2019. 

The biggest promise kept if you asked any Canadian would probably be Trudeau’s commitment to legalizing recreational marijuana use, which he did in October 2018. 

Addressing climate change was another major promise kept during Trudeau’s first five years in power and after he signed the Paris Agreement his government instituted a carbon pricing plan to guide the country to meet its emission level commitments according to Wikipedia. 

However, Trudeau never kept the biggest promise of his campaign, that of transitioning Canada to a mixed-member proportional representation voting system. The plan faded from policy quickly and Trudeau’s commitment was dropped in the next election cycle, angering many Canadians. 

The Prime Minister’s first term in office also saw his first two big scandals, that of the Aga Khan Affair, which The Globe and Mail noted almost led to criminal charges, and the SNC-Lavalin Scandal, which saw the improper influence of the Minister of Justice.

The Aga Khan Affair saw Trudeau accept trips to billionaire philanthropist Aga Khan's private island and really revealed the Prime Minister’s poor judgment according to Macleans. 

The SNC-Lavalin Affair was an entirely different political animal that ended with Trudeau accepting his role in violating Section 9 of the country’s Conflict of Interest Act according to CBC News, a situation that almost certainly affected the election in 2019. 

Scandals have become somewhat of an ongoing problem for Trudeau throughout his time in leadership. There was of course his young dalliances with black and brown face that tarnished his progressive persona, as well as many ethics breaches and violations. 

The biggest of Trudeau’s later scandals was certainly the WE Charity Scandal, which saw the sole charity managing Canada’s $912 million Student Service Grant program also paying Trudeau's family members $425,000 to speak at charity events as per CBC News.

However, Trudeau did do a lot of good for Canadians, especially when it came to his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, and a 2022 study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that Canada outperformed nearly all G10 countries. 

Trudeau’s successive minority governments have also forced the Liberals to partner with the other political parties in Canada in order to help pass important and transformative legislation, legislation that was shaped and changed by the input of Trudeau's previous political rivals. 

In 2019, Trudeau promised to bring $10-a-day childcare to every Canadian province and territory and he accomplished that goal according to the Government of Canada.  

Next came free dental care and the Prime Minister’s government introduced the Canada Dental Plan, a limited version of the future all-encompassing program that is available to Canadians under the age of 12 according to the Canadian Dental Association. 

Trudeau helped reform Canada’s senate but he also invoked the country’s Emergency Powers Act to stop lawful protests during a global pandemic. The Prime Minister banned single-use plastics but he also invested $12 billion in offshore oil as noted by Bloomberg. 

Justin Trudeau’s ten years at the helm of the Liberal Party and seven-plus leading the country have been mixed. The PM both succeeded and failed while generally doing a good job that will cement his legacy. Now, if he could just solve the housing crisis he might be remembered as the best leader Canada ever had.