Justin Trudeau

Biography

Justin Trudeau was born in Ottawa in 1971, the eldest child of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. He attended Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, earned a BA in literature from McGill University in 1994 and a BEd from the University of British Columbia in 1998, and taught French and mathematics at West Point Grey Academy in Vancouver. From 2002 to 2006 he chaired the youth charity Katimavik.

He won the Montreal riding of Papineau in the 2008 federal election and became Liberal leader in April 2013. In the 2015 election he took the Liberals from third place to a majority government and became prime minister at 43. His government introduced the Canada Child Benefit, legalised medical assistance in dying and recreational cannabis, created a federal carbon tax, resettled Syrian refugees, signed the Paris Agreement and negotiated the CUSMA trade deal. The ethics commissioner twice found he had broken conflict-of-interest rules, in the Aga Khan and SNC-Lavalin affairs.

The Liberals were returned with minority governments in 2019 and 2021. Trudeau led Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in 2022 against the Freedom Convoy protests, a decision the Federal Court later ruled against, and backed Ukraine with sanctions and aid after the Russian invasion.

Facing falling support and the resignation of his deputy Chrystia Freeland, he announced in January 2025 that he would step down. Mark Carney succeeded him as Liberal leader on 9 March and as prime minister on 14 March 2025, and Trudeau did not run in the 2025 federal election.