Justin Trudeau was once the darling of Canadian liberals and hailed by American Democrats as the example par excellence of a progressive leader. During the Trump presidency, Democrats extolled Trudeau as the leader up north whose support for progressive values and multiculturalism — as well as his intensive economic policies — made him a saint in comparison to Donald Trump. RELATED: Trudeau’s Orwellian Dream: Deploying ‘the Trump Treatment’ to Destroy Canada It’s been eight years since Trudeau was sworn in as prime minister of Canada, and the good feelings toward him have all but vanished. In a Postmedia-Leger poll released Thursday, 66 percent of Canadians surveyed said they are “dissatisfied with Trudeau’s government,” while only 27 percent said they are “satisfied.” Further, a full 47 percent said they believe Trudeau is failing to resign from his position as Liberal leader for selfish reasons. Worse, only 16 percent said Trudeau “makes the best prime minister” of any of the party leaders. The dissatisfaction is rooted in the numerous crises that have emerged following Trudeau’s aggressively progressive policymaking, including a housing crisis that has rendered affordable housing virtually nonexistent in many Canadian cities and rapidly inflating essential goods prices. The cost-of-living crisis is so acute that the Toronto Star calculated in March that over the past three years, the cost of rent and groceries has increased nearly 40 percent in Canada. This is a number with which wages are not even close to catching up. Real wages declined 1 percent in 2021 and 2.5 percent in 2022 before increasing slightly in 2023. That’s just the beginning of it. There’s also Trudeau’s carbon tax scheme, which has further spiraled Canada’s cost-of-living crisis. The tax, which was introduced in 2019, aims to reduce carbon emissions by placing a high tax on fuel sources, including coal, oil, and gasoline. Households then last receive “rebates” to account for the increased cost. Currently, the tax is set at $80 per ton of carbon. The law is failing to have its intended impact: Last fall, an independent estimate found that carbon emissions actually increased in Canada year over year in 2022. Of course, there is also the issue that the giant tax undertaking of the federal tax on carbon can be counteracted by nature. In 2019, Canada’s carbon emissions amounted to 730 megatons of carbon, but, in 2023, Canadian wildfires produced 480 megatons of carbon. (Moreover, it’s unclear how staving off global warming is beneficial to Canada, which constantly has to deal with extremely cold temperatures.) The opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, has hammered Trudeau over the carbon tax, criticizing the ever-present hardship it presents to Canadians. The drug-overdose crisis is another issue over which Poilievre has gone after Trudeau. Famously, it was Poilievre’s calling Trudeau “a wacko” over his decriminalization of hard drugs that led to Poilievre’s being ejected from the House of Commons. More than 30,000 Canadians died between 2016 and 2023 as a result of the drug epidemic. Despite all these crises, Trudeau has continued to push policy in a direction so absurdly progressive that it is dictatorial. In February, his Liberal Party proposed an “online harms bill” that would call for life imprisonment for promoting genocide — and presumably other “hate speech” will receive similarly harsh punishment. The bill makes it illegal “to communicate or cause to be communicated hate speech by means of the Internet.” In other words, the Liberal Party is seeking to punish those who speak in ways with which the party disagrees — with prison sentences. The bill refers to crimes that will be prosecuted under this basis as “hate propaganda offences.” There was also Trudeau’s unprecedented use of the Emergencies Act during the 2022 Freedom Convoy protests to freeze protesters’ personal bank accounts. The move was later ruled unconstitutional. This all sums up to disaster for Trudeau and the Liberal Party. Polls indicate that, were the election to be held today, Poilievre’s Conservative Party would win the popular vote by 18 percentage points. The libertarian-minded Poilievre, who was made party leader in the political environment that followed the truckers’ convoy in Ottawa, has a pugnaciousness that appeals in Canada’s era of discontent. Trudeau must call an election by October 2025, and most predict that the election will take place next year. There has been talk of replacing Trudeau given the party’s tattered state — with even some Liberal members of Parliament calling for such a change. But it seems that Trudeau is not backing down. He continues to reiterate that he will maintain his position as party leader and face off against Poilievre. And, with the national election set to take place within the next 17 months, the time for him to pull out and allow the Liberal Party to put on a race for party leader is slipping away. “He could leave in early summer,” John Manley, a former Liberal member of Parliament, told Politico this week. “After that, it becomes just too tight for the party to put together a race that they would want to have a lot of profile on.” However, the margins appear so insurmountable for the Liberal Party that a Conservative victory is virtually guaranteed, no matter who the Liberal Party’s leader is. Justin Trudeau went too far, and Canadians will not make the mistake of electing him prime minister again. America is just waiting to see if the backlash to progressivism up north carries down to us. READ MORE from Ellie Gardey Holmes:  Boy Scouts Destroyed Itself By Accepting Girls United Methodist Church Didn’t Just Accept Gay Marriage — It Went Full Woke RFK Jr.’s Philandering, Late Wife’s Suicide Stay Out of Campaign The post Justin Trudeau Is in Deep, Deep Trouble appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.