Premiership of Justin Trudeau

In the 2013 Liberal Party of Canada leadership election, Trudeau won a majority in a landslide first-ballot victory with a voter turnout of 82.16%.[4][5]

In the 2015 Canadian federal election, held on October 19, 2015, the Liberal Party, led by Trudeau, won 184 seats and formed a majority government.[6] Trudeau and his cabinet were sworn in on November 4, 2015.[7] The Conservative Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper, won 99 seats, becoming the Official Opposition. Harper had served as Prime Minister from 2007 through 2015.

In the 2019 Canadian federal election, incumbent Prime Minister Trudeau won 157 seats to form a minority government. The Liberals lost the majority gained in the 2015 election. They also lost the popular vote to the Conservative Party led by Andrew Scheer.[8]

Following the November 4, 2015 Rideau Hall swearing in ceremony by Governor General David Johnston, Justin Trudeau, was invited to form his Cabinet and to [1] become the 29th Prime Minister of Canada. The Liberal Party, led by Trudeau, won a majority of the seats in the House of Commons of Canada, defeating the Conservative led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The original members of the 29th Canadian Ministry included fifteen men and fifteen women and was the first gender-balanced cabinet in Canadian history.[9] Following the July 2018 cabinet shuffle, the cabinet consisted of 34 members with 17 women and 17 men, excluding Trudeau.[10]

The Liberals, under Prime Minister Trudeau, have 157 seats in the 43rd Canadian Parliament as a result of the October 21 2019 federal election which represents a loss of 20 seats.[19] The Conservatives, under Andrew Scheer, have 122 seats after gaining 26 in the election.[19] The Bloc Quebecois, under newly-elected Stephane Bergeron, now has "third-party status in the House of Commons" having increased their seats from 22 to 32. The New Democratic Party (NDP), under Jagmeet Singh lost 15 seats and held 25. The Green Party now have three seats when previously they only held one, that of the party leader Elizabeth May.[19]

In the Annual Financial Report of the Government of Canada for 2018 - 2019, the Minister of Finance said that the budgetary deficit was $14.0 billion for the FY ending March 31, 2019 and that revenues "increased by $21.0 billion, or 6.7 per cent, from 2017–18."[32]^:7 There was an increase of 4.7 per cent ($14.6 billion) in program expenses. The federal debt was $685.5 billion and debt-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio was 30.9 per cent which is a decrease from 31.3 per cent in 2018.[32]^:7 Public debt charges that had reached a peak of about "30 percent in the mid-1990s" were down to "6.7 per cent of expenses in 2018–19."[32]^:6 The report said there was strong growth in most regions of the world in 2016 and 2017 and that global economic expansion was more moderate in 2018.[32]^:7 Canada's real GDP grew 3.0 per cent in 2017 and 1.9 per cent in 2018.[32]^:7 From the fall of 2015 through March 2019, Canada has added 1 million jobs. The unemployment rate reached its lowest level since 1979.[32]^:7 Oil prices dropped in the second half of 2018 globally. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil increased to nearly US$70 per barrel in October, 2018 which represents its "highest level since before the oil shock." By December WTI dropped to below US$50 per barrel."[32]^:7 As a result of the lower price of oil at the end of the year, Canada's nominal GDP was more moderate in 2018 than 2017.[32]^:7

According to the report, on August 31, 2018, the Government of Canada purchased the "entities that control the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline, its Expansion Project and related assets for $4.4 billion" which was financed through a loan to CDEV, "an enterprise Crown corporation."[32]^:21 The Government of Canada does not intend "to be a long-term owner of the Trans Mountain entities."[32]^:21 By May 29 when the purchase was announced it was met with a "storm of criticism" from environmental groups, Indigenous leaders and opposition politicians.[33] The Green Party's Elizabeth May said it was an "historic blunder"; the president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs was "shocked and appalled."[33]

The federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (GHGPPA), passed into law in December 2018, making Canada a leader in carbon pricing, according to the Financial Post.[34] Through the pricing system, provinces and territories can base their carbon pricing system on the needs and requirements of their own jurisdictions. If their proposed system does not meet federal requirements or if the province or territory decides to not create their own system, the GHGPPA implements a regulatory fee. In provinces where a GHGPPA fee is levied, 90% of the revenues will be returned to tax-payers.[35] The carbon price is part of the Federal government's commitments to the Paris Agreement.[36][34]

The federal budget presented in February 2018 included an increase in the Environment and Climate Change Canada's budget to $1.5 billion which represents an increase of 53.5 per cent "more than it was initially allocated" in 2017 and "23.1 per cent more than it ended up spending" in 2017.[37]

The current Auditor General of Canada is Sylvain Ricard, who was appointed on March 29, 2019 by Prime Minister Trudeau to serve until a permanent replacement was selected.[38] His Office conducts independent audits of federal government operations and reports to the House of Commons of Canada, not to the federal government. These audits provide members of Parliament with objective information to help them examine the government's activities and hold it to account.

The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) conducted two reports, one if 2017[39] and another in 2018[40] reviewing the Phoenix Pay System—a payroll processing system for Canadian federal government employees that is run by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) which has been controversial for a number of years—[40][39] The 2018 report said that the Phoenix system was an "'incomprehensible failure' of project management and oversight."[41] Then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper had introduced the system as part of his 2009 Transformation of Pay Administration Initiative, to replace Canada's 40-year old system with a new improved, cost-saving "automated, off-the-shelf commercial system." By 2018, Phoenix has caused pay problems to over 50 percent of the federal government’s 290,000 public servants through underpayments, over-payments, and non-payments.[42] In the same year the Senator Percy Mockler's Standing Senate Committee on National Finance report on Phoenix Pay Problem called Phoenix an "international embarrassment"[42] and that fixing Phoenix's problems could be up to $2.2 billion by 2023 instead of saving $70 million a year as originally planned by the Harper government.[42] In May 2019, the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) predicted that the Phoenix replacement—which will save millions—will not be operational until 2023.[41]

The governments of Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper fulfilled the majority of their campaign promises and scored highest on fulfilling their campaign promises compared to any other "Canadian government over the last 35 years", according to an August 30, 2019 publication based on research at Laval University. The 237-page publication, Assessing Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Government. 353 promises and a mandate for change, includes the work of "two dozen Canadian academics". The co-editors of the book—political scientist Francois Pétry and Lisa Birch, who is the executive director of the Centre for Public Policy Analysis (CPPA)'s — co-developed a "platform-monitoring tool" called the "Polimetre as a "non-partisan, transparent source of information about pledge fulfilment." The Polimetre tracks and compares Canadian governments' "fulfillment of election promises".[47][48]