Trudeau Shows Strength Of The US System

Some Dramas Are Simply Not Possible In A Presidential System

Facing an internal revolt among Liberal Party backbenchers following former Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s abrupt resignation, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau bowed to the winds of inevitable political change on Monday and announced he was resigning as Liberal Party leader—and thus as Prime Minister.

“I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its new leader,” the 53-year-old leader told reporters at a news conference in Ottawa on Monday.

As Canada’s Liberal Party sets about choosing its next party leader—and thus, by extension, the next Prime Minister—the manner of Trudeau’s resignation highlights one of the particular virtues of the Presidential system of government found here in the United States. A fair bit of the back-room (and arguably Byzantine) machinations that will now take place within Canada’s government now are simply precluded by the order of things laid out in the United States Constitution.

Trudeau Resigned…Sort Of

Perhaps the most crucial detail in Trudeau’s resignation announcement is that he technically has not resigned—yet.

As with all things in politics, the devil is in the wording:

I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide competitive process. Last night, I asked the president of the Liberal Party to begin that process.

Until the Liberal Party selects its next leader, Justin Trudeau is still the Prime Minister, and even still the leader of Canada’s Liberal Party.

How is he able to thread this particular political needle? By first suspending—or “proroguing”—the Canadian Parliament.

Indeed, the sequencing of his announcement very likely was no accident, as he specifically announced the prorogation of Parliament first, before stating his intent to resign.

My friends, as you all know, I’m a fighter. Every bone in my body has always told me to fight because I care deeply about Canadians, I care deeply about this country, and I will always be motivated by what is in the best interests of Canadians. And the fact is, despite best efforts to work through it, Parliament has been paralyzed for months after what has been the longest session of a minority parliament in Canadian history. That’s why this morning I advised the Governor-General that we need a new session of Parliament. She has granted this request and the House will now be prorogued until March 24th.

Prorogation throws the Parliament into a political limbo of sorts. No new business will be discussed, all pending legislation is effectively stalled and almost certainly killed, and in every legislative respect, the Canadian Government has been put on “pause”.

It is within this “pause” that Trudeau announced his intention to resign.

Could he end up not resigning?

Theoretically, yes.

Should the Liberal Party, after conducting its “robust nationwide competitive process,” decide that the very best person to lead the party is none other than Justin Trudeau, there remains that one slight chance that, come March 24, he will remain as Canada’s Prime Minister.

The political reality, of course, is that Justin Trudeau is now going to be replaced by someone else within the party. Beginning with the recently-resigned Chrystia Freeland, there are simply too many aspiring leaders nipping at Trudeau’s heels for the party to plausibly consider retaining him at this juncture. Sometime on or before March 24, the Liberal Party will tap another politician to be its next leader and the next Prime Minister of Canada.

By proroguing the Parliament first, Trudeau has given the Liberal Party a “grace period” to select its new party leader before Canada commences a general election to choose a new Parliament. Once the Parliament reconvenes, on or before March 24, a general election is sure to be set in motion, as the Liberal government is all but assured of losing a no-confidence vote which would mandate a new election.

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has been campaigning for a no-confidence vote against Trudeau for months, and has thus far not succeeded in rallying the other parties to vote with the Conservatives on a no-confidence motion. However, with Trudeau’s announcement, it appears that the primary holdout against the motion, the New Democratic Party, helmed by Jagmeet Singh, has now come around.

The problem is not just Justin Trudeau. It’s every minister that’s been calling the shots. It’s every Liberal MP that looked down their nose at Canadians who are worried about high costs or crumbling health care. The Liberals do not deserve another chance, no matter who is the leader.

The New Democratic Party had been one of the Liberal Party’s coalition partners in the government until this past September. Despite the NDP’s withdrawal of support for the Liberals, Singh has consistently avoided backing Poilievre’s no-confidence motion as the various parties jockeyed for position amidst the crumbling of the Liberal’s minority government.

Tactically, Trudeau has given the Liberals their best chance of prevailing in the elections that are sure to happen sooner rather than later by pursuing prorogation and then resigning. As Trudeau has been the lightning rod for much of the criticism the Liberals have received nationally in Canada, by exiting the political scene before the Parliament reconvenes, he gives the party its best chance to avoid fallout from that criticism.

Why Prorogation?

Prorogation is the mechanism that allows Trudeau to sequence the political events to his liking.

Prorogation is a feature peculiar to the Westminster form of Parliamentary government that is found both within Great Britain and most of the constituent nations of the former British Empire (and which now make up the British Commonwealth).

Within the UK Parliament, prorogation occurs when a Parliamentary session is ended¹, often ahead of a general election. Prorogation is one of the few remaining “royal prerogatives” in that it technically is the reigning monarch which prorogues the Parliament, although under the Prorogation Act of 1867² prorogation occurs after advice and consultation with His Majesty’s Privy Council³.

Because prorogation is a royal prerogative, it suspends all Parliamentary business without actually dissolving the Parliament. Constitutionally, when the Parliament—both in the United Kingdom and in Canada—is dissolved, a general election is mandatory and cannot be unduly delayed. Prorogation is thus a royal kicking of the electoral can down the road for a time.

Within the Canadian government prorogation is largely similar, although it is executed by the Governor-General⁴ who stands as the Crown’s representative within the Canadian Government. In the Canadian procedure, prorogation occurs when the Prime Minister “advises” the Governor-General to do so—which is to say when the Prime Minister asks the Governor-General to do so.

Procedurally, prorogation is much the same in Canada as it is in Great Britain, and has the effect of stopping all legislative business.

Prorogation of a session brings to an end all proceedings before Parliament. With certain exceptions, unfinished business “dies” on the Order Paper and must be started anew in a subsequent session.

Most importantly for Trudeau and the Liberals, however, is that during prorogation, no new business may be “tabled”, or introduced into Parliament for consideration. While the Parliament is prorogued, Poilievre and the Conservatives are effectively blocked from introducing yet another no-confidence motion which would, given the current political tempers among the parties, the Liberals are sure to lose.

The no-confidence motion, when it passes, will trigger a general election and dissolve the current Parliament.

The logic behind prorogation is fairly obvious for Trudeau—it buys his Liberal Party time to get organized and ready for a general election behind a new leader. The Liberals may no longer be able to avoid the no-confidence motion, but they can at least for a time control when that no-confidence motion will happen, and can thus maintain some influence on the precise timing of the next election.

This Does Not Happen In The US

While this sort of political legerdemain is somewhat routine within Parliamentary systems—both the UK and the Canadian Parliaments have been prorogued in recent years to the political advantage of the governing party—it would be next to impossible for this to happen within the United States government.

The reasons for this are found in the governing structures mandates by the United States Constitution.

One of the particular geniuses of the US Constitution is that electoral terms of office for Representatives, Senators, and the President are set in stone.

• Per Article 1, Section 2, members of the House of Representatives are to be elected once every two years, by a popular election of the several states.

• Per Article 1 Section 3, Senators were initially to be chosen once every six years by the Legislature each State, with one-third of all Senators to be chosen every two years. The 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913, changed the selection process to a popular vote by the people of each State, but the terms and the one-third rotation were maintained.

• Per Article 2, Section 1, the President and Vice President of the United States are elected by the Electoral College for a term of four years.

As a consequence of these fixed terms of office, which the Constitution provides no mechanism for altering or extending, US elections operate on an immutable timetable. Congressonal elections happen every two years regardless of what political turmoil may be unfolding at the time. Presidential elections happen every four years, regardless of what political turmoil may be happening at the time.

Neither party has the power to delay elections, or to call them early to take advantage of a moment of relative popularity with the electorate.

Additionally, Presidential systems such as the Constitution mandates for the United States separates the election of the Executive from the election of the Legislature⁵, whereas in Parliamentary systems the Executive is always the leader of the leading party within the Parliament⁶. Presidents can be—and have been—elected even when their political party is not in the majority in one or both Houses of Congress. Presidents can begin a term with their party in the majority in one or both Houses of Congress then lose that majority during the mid-term election which happens during every Presidency because of the fixed terms of office for legislators specified in Article 1.

Thus there is no parliamentary “no confidence” motion to “bring down” a government within the US system—and thus no political gamesmanship surrounding a no confidence motion. The entire system operates on based on fixed calendar dates, and everyone in the United States knows when the next general election is to be held at the national level.

The closest the United States government comes to anything resembling prorogation is found in an as-yet untested power of the President. In Article 2, Section 3, the President has the power to adjourn the Congress when there is a dispute over the timing and duration of a Congressional adjournment.

in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper

Since the founding of the Republic, no US President has ever exercised this power. It exists, and, Constitutionally speaking, is very real, but the dynamics of a Presidential system make such a dispute between the House of Representatives and the Senate extremely unlikely.

The Calendar Prevents Uncertainty

That elections under the Constitution happen on a fixed timetable takes away the uncertainties that can swirl around a minority government within Parliamentary systems.

As we have seen recently in Germany, in France, and most recently in Austria, when one political party is unable to dominate the legislature, the result can be a fractious and often immobilized national government. Austria held its most recent elections in September, yet the recent resignation of the Austrian Chancellor calls attention to the reality that Austria still does not have a functioning goverment emerging from that election. Germany is about to have snap elections, and France’s President Emmanuel Macron was recently compelled to appoint a new Prime Minister (whose tenure remains uncertain as new elections are possible almost any time after June of this year).

Meanwhile, legislative process in these countries—and now in Canada—is effectively stymied.

From a libertarian perspective, this is not entirely a bad thing. A government prorogued or otherwise obstructed is a government that cannot engage in political mischief.

Yet the reality of human societies is that people invariably form governments. For better or worse, this how humanity is hard wired (my book project uses this as its animating thesis). While conceptually I wholeheartedly agree with Thoreau in believing “that government is best which governs not at all,” practically so long as a people intend there to be government, that government has to be able to function at some minimal level.

Prorogation means that the Canadian government does not function, even as it falls short of the ideal of “governing not at all.”

There are many aspects of the US government which stand in sore need of reform. That the US government is a toxic and corrupt swamp has at this point been proven beyond any and all contestation.

Yet there is some merit in avoiding the political limbo and uncertainty that arises from not knowing when the next election is to be held. There is some merit in the certitude that arises from a political calendar that is largely fixed and immutable.

With Donald Trump having been voted into office on a political agenda of reform and reconstruction of government, we can look forward to a political season of root-and-branch reform in government, and we can look forward to the Establishmentarians in the Congress looking for ways to frustrate those reforms at every turn. Radical change has been promised for Washington, and it remains to be seen how much change will be accomplished and how radical it will actually be.

With radical change very much on the political menu for 2025, we do well to pause now and again to remind ourselves of those parts of the governing structure which are still fit for purpose, and which need to be maintained, even as the rest of the structure is being torn down.

Radical change is good. Destructive change, not so much. We do well to remember that there is a difference.

1. UK Parliament. Prorogation . https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/occasions/prorogation/.

2. UK Public General Acts. Prorogation Act 1867. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/30-31/81/section/1.

3. Privy Council. Privy Council. https://privycouncil.independent.gov.uk/privy-council/.

4. House of Commons of Canada. “The Parliamentary Cycle: Prorogation and Dissolution”, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Third Edition, 2017. https://www.ourcommons.ca/procedure/procedure-and-practice-3/ch_08_6-e.html.

5. "Presidentialism/Presidential Systems ." Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture. Encyclopedia.com. 18 Dec. 2024 <https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/presidentialismpresidential-systems>.

6. Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "parliamentary system". Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Dec. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/parliamentary-system. Accessed 7 January 2025.