Watch Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announce that it was Quit smoking On a cold Monday morning in Ottawa, I recalled the moment award-winning fighter Roberto Duran, He grew up His hands were in the boxing ring and he said, “No mas [No more]”.

It was a merciful and expected conclusion to an unexpected political process that began with promises and expectations and ended mired in rejection and counter-accusations.

“I am a fighter,” the soon-to-be prime minister said.

The battle has clearly drained Trudeau after some of his closest allies in Cabinet have abandoned him, and a party that once celebrated the exuberance of his youth now views the Liberal boy wonder as a loser and an obstructionist.

Devoted readers know my long-standing dislike and, at times, disgust for the Prime Minister who struck me, from the beginning, as the Crown Prince whose hollow antics of performative nonsense were a hackneyed substitute for conviction and intelligence.

But a large portion of the international press was fascinated by Trudeau’s cowardly personality and empty behavior, heralding him as a shining antidote to the policies of anger and grievance pursued by US President-elect Donald Trump.

Trudeau was a “progressive” fraud. Instead of mounting a sustained and resolute challenge to the status quo, he devoted almost all of his ten years as Prime Minister to defending it at home and abroad.

He was adept at giving seasoned speeches about the urgent need to bridge the gap between rich and poor and then doing nothing concrete about it.

Trudeau and narrow company only agreed to pass legislation making universal, affordable daycare and dental care available to struggling Canadian families as part of a deal with the New Democratic Party to keep the minority government afloat — such was the Liberal Party’s calculated commitment to justice and fairness. .

Time and again, Trudeau made clear that he was an establishment man — in every sense of the word — who enjoyed playing the role of a Cold War warrior taking on Ukraine and a servant of an Israeli apartheid regime led by an accused war criminal committing genocide in Gaza. And the demolition of the occupied West Bank.

On the two defining geopolitical issues of this terrible era, Trudeau not only responded to the rhetoric dictated to him by his boss in the Oval Office – US President Joe Biden – but parroted, literally, his obedient message of kindness.

However, if Trudeau had any real sense of the duties and obligations of a prime minister, he would have listened to him Calls to quit when his racist blackface days into adulthood were revealed in 2019.

Instead, Trudeau and his group of short-sighted wizards put the interests of the prime minister before those of the country.

It was a humiliation that confirmed, in my mind at least, that Trudeau had forfeited the privilege of holding any public office, let alone that of prime minister.

True to his childlike form, Trudeau and company weathered the brief storm by having the insignificant prime minister issue a series of empty and unconvincing apologies that compounded his disgrace.

Perhaps the episode that best established Trudeau’s core character – and not surprisingly, it escaped the attention of both his loyal supporters and his loyal critics in the media and beyond – was his shameful U-turn on abandoning injured Palestinian children.

Anyone who, at any time, goes back on a promise to help innocent victims of war to appease racists and xenophobes inside and outside Parliament is a vile hypocrite.

Justin Trudeau has done just that, turning his back on the children who need it most. This obscenity will forever stain his legacy.

As I am He explained In several ColumnsWhile the Liberal leader sat in opposition, Trudeau publicly and repeatedly threw his statements behind an initiative organized by the famous Canadian-Palestinian, Dr. Ezzedine Abuelaish, called Heal100Kids.

Dr. Abuelaish enlisted the support of regional politicians, doctors, nurses, hospitals and other volunteers to arrange for 100 wounded Palestinian children – accompanied by their immediate family members – to travel to Canada to receive treatment to repair their damaged minds, bodies and spirits. .

After Trudeau won the majority in 2015, Dr. Abuelaish — who endured the killing by invading Israeli forces of three of his daughters and a niece in Gaza in 2009 with remarkable grace — made several public and private initiatives to make Trudeau live up to his word.

Trudeau never responded.

Dr. Abouleish, a distinguished man who is not prone to exaggeration, told me that Trudeau was a liar and that history would judge his betrayal harshly.

He is right on both counts.

Trudeau has betrayed others for other reasons.

He betrayed his so-called “feminist” credentials when he sacked female ministers, including an Indigenous colleague, for daring to challenge him at the Cabinet table or stand up for the rule of law.

As I am books In September 2023, the supposed climate “action” champion, Bought The troubled oil pipeline is worth C$4.5 billion ($3.3 billion).

The “champion” of human rights and the rules-based international “order,” with a little help from his rebel-friendly friends in Brazil, tried to fail. Steady Malleable marionette in Venezuela.

The supposed “hero” of the plight of victimizing “ordinary” Canadians has allowed predatory corporate monopolies to continue to reap extraordinary profits while the gap between the wealthy and everyone else, not to mention the privileged 99 per cent, has widened.

Despite the anguished rhetoric of amnesiacs in the House of Commons and newsrooms across Canada, Trudeau’s departure is not evidence of a national “crisis” or that the capital is in “chaos” or “paralysis.”

This is further evidence that, given the inevitable cycle of politics, prime ministers – Liberal or Conservative – enjoy a normal life expectancy.

Trudeau’s Conservative predecessor, Stephen Harper, lasted 10 years as prime minister before voters became angry with him.

Harper’s Liberal predecessor, Jean Chretien, spent a decade as prime minister before voters became angry with him.

Chretien’s conservative predecessor, the late Brian Mulroney, also held office for nearly a decade before voters became angry with him.

I suspect the same fate awaits current conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who appears poised – if the consensus among pollsters is accurate – to win a large majority in the next federal election, which will likely be held in the spring.

On the other hand, frenzied Liberals will choose a keen sacrificial lamb – not named Trudeau – to confront the obnoxious, sarcasm-addicted Poilievre in a futile attempt to stave off the inevitable.

So, to borrow the phrase made famous by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, “Welcome to” 2025, Justin.

Good for you.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.