A couple months ago I wrote about Justin Trudeau’s declining fortunes in the approval polls. At the time it wasn’t really clear why it was happening but one leading explanation was that people were fed up with inflation and the high cost of living. Whatever the case, Trudeau’s polling really hasn’t improved. It’s beginning to feel like people have just made up their minds about him.

For months, polls have shown the Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre, ahead by 10 to 15 points and gaining ground nearly everywhere. Those numbers, if they were to hold up in an election, would likely produce a large majority government for the 44-year-old opposition leader and end Trudeau’s reign with a thud.

It’s the deepest funk Trudeau has endured during his eight years in power.

“This has been something that’s been building for a while,” said Andrew Enns of the polling firm Leger. “When there’s a strong change in sentiment, people make up their mind about the leader. And in this case with Mr. Trudeau, they’ve decided that he just doesn’t have it for the problems they’re currently facing.”…

The Conservative leader is the most formidable challenger Trudeau has faced, and has channeled Canadians’ anger about the rising cost of living — dubbing it “Justinflation.” Poilievre’s constant refrain is: “After eight years of Justin Trudeau, everything costs more.”

The situation has gotten dire enough that even some of his supposed allies are suggesting it might be time for him to go.

Liberal lawmakers and anxious operatives are whispering that it’s time for Trudeau to think about throwing in the towel. The prime minister’s opponents delight in amplifying the angst…
Trudeau’s apparent downward drag on his own party is all at once a mainstay of political commentary. The Toronto Star recently published a spate of polling data to demonstrate the extent of the problem, quoting Abacus Data CEO David Coletto’s stark framing of the stakes:

“After eight years in office, too many people are just finished with him. He’s a big part of the problem and there’s little faith he can get focused on the things they care about.”

Trudeau has also created a political mess with his recent decision to create an exemption to his own carbon tax policy. Last month Trudeau announced that home heating fuel would henceforth be exempt from the tax. It just happens that this type of fuel is mostly used to heat homes in eastern provinces where Trudeau’s favorability has been sliding.

Trudeau made the promise suddenly last week after months of resisting vocal calls from his Atlantic caucus to provide cost-of-living relief, and as affordability is contributing to the Liberals’ plummeting poll numbers.

But with the policy exemption limited to just home heating oil — which is most common in Atlantic Canada — premiers in the Prairies and Ontario immediately cried foul…

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith demanded immediately that the carve-out be extended to natural gas, which is used to heat four in five homes in her province.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said the carbon price should be scrapped altogether, and Manitoba Finance Minister Adrien Sala said Tuesday that Manitobans deserve fairness, and that he would be speaking to the federal Liberals about what can be done to help his province…

Accusations of regional favouritism for political purposes intensified on Sunday after Rural Development Minister Gudie Hutchings implied on CTV’s Question Period that Prairie provinces should elect more Liberals if they want their voices heard on the need for carbon pricing relief.

So it really looks as if Trudeau offered a bit of favoritism to one region of the country to help his poll numbers. He has since vowed that no other exceptions will be made but his critics say the damage has been done. The whole scheme has been exposed.

By now, the verdict is near-unanimous: the federal carbon tax is a farce. The exemption for heating oil in Atlantic Canada put a lie to the entire project: faced with declining fortunes in the East, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blinked and chose votes over virtue. Cue the outstretched hands from the rest of the country: what about propane? what about natural gas? what about everyone who heats their house west of the Quebec-New Brunswick border?…

The demise of this signature policy is a symptom of a greater malaise: the crumbling of Liberal fortunes, and specifically, those of the prime minister, as his virtue-signaling agenda confronts harsh economic times and the failure of woke politics. Canadians struggling to pay the rent have no money for extra taxes, and no interest in being lectured. They also don’t appreciate the divide-and-conquer approach to national politics, whereby one region or sector gets preferential treatment and others are literally left in the cold.

Instead, Trudeau’s intransigence on the carbon tax speaks volumes about his government’s priorities: it’s not about applying equal treatment to farmers, or helping Canadians when they need it most, but clinging to a legacy project. Without this tax, he will have failed to leave an enduring mark in the future of the country. In other words, it’s all about him.

And a similar take from another newspaper:

These green levies are now exposed as nothing more than a political gambit, to be imposed and jettisoned according to the latest poll numbers: the whole moral superstructure they were built upon shown to be an environmental Potemkin village, erected just for effect while the real business continues in the shadows.

In the end, all it took was a revival of inflation — ironically something Trudeau’s own government helped spur with its ludicrous spend and borrow fiscal policy — to focus Canadians’ attention on their own pocketbooks rather than Greta Thunberg’s latest pronouncements.

Carbon taxes are done. It is simply a matter of time.

People are increasingly sick of Trudeau but at the moment it appears he has until 2025 before the next election. That’s a very long time in politics. Hopefully the anti-Trudeau mood won’t wear off in the interim.