Canadians can take a while to get angry – but when they finally do, watch out. Canada has been falling out of love with Justin Trudeau for years, and his exit has to be the least surprising news event of the New Year. On recent polling, Trudeau’s Liberal party has the support of only 16% of the voting public, which is the lowest approval rating recorded by the Liberals, in their entire 157 years of existence. Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau’s right hand woman resigned three weeks ago, his chosen successor has declined the job, and by Christmas, his own party has turned on him.

Things had become so bad that almost every rival Canadian party except the Greens had vowed to table a no-confidence motion later this month that would trigger fresh elections.They may still do so. The process is all but certain to vault into power the Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who is peddling the usual array of anti- environment, anti-woke, tough on crime, tough on welfare policies. As Poilievre recently told Jordan Peterson:

We're going to cut bureaucracy, cut the consultants, cut foreign aid, cut back on corporate welfare to large corporations. We're going to use the savings to bring down the deficit and taxes and unleash the free-enterprise system," Poilievre pledged.

Canada soured on Trudeau for some very familiar reasons: the cost of living, housing affordability, the state of the healthcare system, and anxiety about a looming trade war with the United States. (US president-elect Donald Trump is promising to impose high tariffs on Canadian goods.) Poilievre is likely to have a very short honeymoon since – as in New Zealand – his own austerity measures will make a difficult economic situation even worse. (Worldwide, conservatives seem to regard the state investing in growth as a contradiction in terms.) Besides, Poilievre will also have to deal with a Trump administration that will be keen to treat him as a football.

Power, as its own undoing

Trudeau has lasted longer than most. Around the world, political power is a poisoned chalice. Last month, France got its fourth government in 12 months, after a no-confidence motion saw the end of France’s shortest-serving government in over 60 years. The German coalition government collapsed in November over internal differences on economic policy. Fresh elections in February are very likely to bring down Olaf Scholz, the most unpopular Chancellor that Germany has had since its re-unification in 1990. (US Co-President Elon Musk has already pledged support for the far right AfD party.

Despite winning a huge parliamentary majority in Britain only a few months ago, Keir Starmer’s Labour government is now only level pegging in the polls with (a) the far right Reform Party, and (b) the recently loathed Conservative Party. (Not entirely surprising, since Starmer won power with the lowest vote for Labour in decades.) If a federal election was held in Australia tomorrow, the fate of the Albanese government would be too close to call. Although widely despised when in government, Peter Dutton has proved to be a very efficient wrecking ball in opposition.

That’s the trend. (Italy, ironically, is a bastion of stability.) Worldwide, the public is voting incumbents out of office, but is then churning through their replacements at an unprecedented rate. Compared to this carnage that’s occurring offshore, Christopher Luxon and his team can feel some relief. After a year of policy fumbles (the cutbacks in public health, the smokefree legislation reversal, the Cook Strait ferries debacle, and the spending cutbacks and welfare crackdowns in the midst of a recession) the National Party is still polling competitively with Labour.

The Beehive incumbents have ample reason to think that things could easily be far, far worse. Labour should be feeling the opposite. After all the unpopular/disturbing decisions that the coalition government has made this year, why isn’t Labour ten points ahead in the polls? Not only did Labour squander its once-in-a-lifetime majority in Parliament, it has now chosen to go AWOL from the task of presenting a credible alternative to a vulnerable government. Where is Labour’s Peter Dutton?

Moving right

Why are voters across the developed world feeling so very angry at their political leaders? The short answer is that people have been betrayed by free market economics, which promised so much to everyone (neo-liberalism would lift everyone’s boat!) while enriching only the few, and worldwide, consigning hundreds of millions of people to the social scrap-heap. But why therefore, are the angry and the betrayed looking further to the right for solutions, and not to the left? Immigrants do make easy scapegoats, but that’s only part of the explanation.

One answer for the rightwards lurch is that by and large, the social democratic parties of the left have retained the free market economic policies they were elected to replace, and have merely tried to make these policies deliver social outcomes that are more fair and more kind. This was bound to be a doomed mission, given how the economic policies in question keep generating more and more victims. It's what neoliberalism does.

Faced with a choice between hardline neoliberalism, and a diluted dose of the same medicines, the public have turned to right wing populists who promise to purify the facades of social democracy by setting them on fire.

Moreover...since the central messages of the neo-liberal gospel has been that governments are inherently incompetent – and that state spending is inherently bad – it is not surprising that the angry and the disgruntled have not been looking to benign governments for their salvation.

Home Fires, Hardly Burning

Here at home, Labour is not going into 2025 offering anything looking remotely like an alternative approach to economic management. It can’t even deliver a clear statement of intent on issues the party has debated endlessly in the past, such as the taxing of wealth and/or capital gains. Therein lies part of the reason for the Luxon government getting off lightly. On most days, it looks like the only game in town.

Overall, the centre-right parties have done what they declared they would do, and even their fudges and broken promises have been along familiar lines. They’re the known quantities. The public may disagree with some of the harsh outcomes – especially in health – but at least it knows what this government stands for. Yet among the Opposition, the public can say the same thing only about the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.

Happy-ish New Year

New Year’s Day can be a mixed blessing. Hank Williams died (probably around midnight) on New Years Eve, 1952 although his driver only realised the next morning – after driving for 20 hours – that his famous passenger had expired on the back seat of the car sometime during the night.

IMO, this ode to the anxious promises and regrets of New Year’s Eve/New Years Day is one of Taylor Swift’s best songs.

There’s glitter on the floor after the party/girls carrying their shoes across the lobby/candlewax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor/you and me, from the night before... I’ll be cleaning up bottles of you on New Year’s Day...

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