Justin Trudeau

Trudeau was born in Ottawa, Ontario and attended Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf. He graduated from McGill University in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in literature, then in 1998 acquired a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of British Columbia. After graduating he taught at the secondary school level in Vancouver, before relocating back to Montreal in 2002 to further his studies. He was chair for the youth charity Katimavik and director of the not-for-profit Canadian Avalanche Association. In 2006, he was appointed as chair of the Liberal Party's Task Force on Youth Renewal.


In the 2008 federal election, he was elected to represent the riding of Papineau in the House of Commons. He was the Liberal Party's Official Opposition critic for youth and multiculturalism in 2009, and the following year he became critic for citizenship and immigration. In 2011, he was appointed as a critic for secondary education and sport. Trudeau won the leadership of the Liberal Party in April 2013 and led his party to victory in the 2015 federal election, moving the third-placed Liberals from 36 seats to 184 seats, the largest-ever numerical increase by a party in a Canadian federal election. Trudeau is the second-youngest prime minister in Canadian history after Joe Clark; he is also the first to be the child of a previous holder of the post, as the eldest son of Pierre Trudeau.


Major government initiatives he undertook during his first term as prime minister included legalizing recreational marijuana through the Cannabis Act; attempting Senate appointment reform by establishing the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments and establishing the federal carbon tax. In foreign policy, Trudeau's government negotiated trade deals such as the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and signed the Paris Agreement on climate change. He was sanctioned by Canada's ethics commissioner for violating conflict of interest rules regarding the Aga Khan affair, and later again with the SNC-Lavalin affair.


Trudeau led the Liberals to a minority government victory in the 2019 federal election. During his second term, his government responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, announced an "assault-style" weapons ban in response to the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks, and launched a national child care program. He was investigated for a third time by the ethics commissioner for his part in the WE Charity scandal, but was cleared of wrongdoing. In the 2021 federal election, he led the Liberals to another minority government.


During his third term, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act in response to the Freedom Convoy protests (the first time the act was brought into force since it was enacted in 1988) and responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Russia and authorizing military aid to Ukraine.^[2] His government also entered into a confidence and supply agreement with the New Democratic Party (NDP), which resulted in the launching of a national dental care program for low income Canadians and a framework for national Pharmacare.