- November 4, 2015 -
Justin Trudeau Sworn in as Prime Minister
OTTAWA—Following his party's victory in last month's federal election, Justin Trudeau was sworn in as Prime Minister of Canada today amidst much fanfare on the grounds of the governor-general's residence. Having led the Liberal Party for barely more than two years, Mr. Trudeau now becomes the first prime minister to govern without an outright majority in the House of Commons since 2008, when his predecessor in the premiership, Stephen Harper, formed a minority Conservative government following that year's inconclusive federal elections.
If Mr. Trudeau, backed by a bare popular plurality of 34% in the last election, finds in the strength of his position something to be desired, the same can be said of the parties in opposition. Since the election, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and former Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair have respectively resigned leadership of the Conservative and New Democratic parties, while Rhéal Fortin replaces Gilles Duceppe as leader of the Bloc Québécois. After nearly a decade in government, the Conservatives now find themselves the Official Opposition, while NDP—the ranks of her caucus sharply reduced after their historic showing in 2011—with sixty-three seats has the votes to either sustain the Trudeau Ministry, or scuttle it. As parliament prepares to reconvene with the promise of the new government's first budget on the horizon, the next four years will tell whether the premiership of Justin Trudeau will be recorded as a remarkable success or a dismal failure in the pages of Canadian history.
