Hot Take: The end of Trudeau

Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has resigned after a decade in the top job, having lost the support of his own party ahead of what is shaping up to be a landslide victory for the Conservative opposition later this year.

I know I've got some Canadian readers, along with plenty of Australians who have an interest in the country given the cultural and economic similarities, so I thought it would be worth taking a quick look at how it all went wrong for Trudeau and what it might mean for Australia.

The realigning election

Justin Trudeau was first elected as Prime Minister in 2015 in a somewhat surprising result – his Liberal party (ideologically equivalent to Australia's Labor party) was third place in pre-election polling, before pulling off a stunning late surge to secure a majority government – its first in 15 years.

The victory was less about Trudeau's Liberals and more to do with people's immense dislike of the incumbent Conservative party Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. Despite the big win, the honeymoon would only last a single term.