In the end, he stayed true to form. It isn’t his fault. None of it.

Justin Trudeau was looking forward to contesting and winning the Canadian federal election scheduled for later this year. He’s a fighter he says; he wanted to win, he thought he would win.

Instead he is stepping down as Liberal Party leader, and, once a new leader is chosen, as Prime Minister.

The reason for his change of heart, he says, is party infighting. That sort of thing would be a distraction in the election campaign.

He doesn’t want to admit there is no party infighting. His caucus is united – against him. They think the only possibility of electoral success is without him.

Trudeau, facing a non-confidence vote in Parliament at the end of the month that would have triggered an election, has elected to shut the place down until March 24. By then the Liberals may have their new leader in place. But will it make any difference?

Even successful governments have a best-before date, and it could be argued that Trudeau’s was long ago. Will changing the leader make Canadians forget the past nine years of Liberal rule? I doubt it.

Trudeau can now say he went out as a winner, despite the caucus revolt. He won three straight elections. His time in office has been costly personally (including the ending of his marriage) but he thinks his policies have been for the good of Canada, even if many people would disagree with that assessment.

In stepping down in this way, he has put himself first. Certainly his departure is not good for the Liberal Party. Trudeau is a lightning rod for discontent. Voters were looking forward to kicking him out of office. Now he has denied them that opportunity.

The anger will now be transferred to the new Liberal leader, whomever he or she may be. It feels like 1984, when Kim Campbell led the Conservatives to an historical defeat because voters were still angry at Brian Mulroney. Even with Trudeau gone, the Liberal chances of victory are slim or none.

After an election loss, that new leader will be tossed by the party and they will have to start over again. It would have been better for Trudeau to lose the election and then the new leader would have had four years to rebuild the party. Now it looks like they may have two leadership campaigns this year.

For Justin Trudeau losing an election wasn’t an option.

The country wanted him gone two years ago, but he didn’t want to step down. For the good of his party he should have called an election already, but he couldn’t do that because he doesn’t like to lose.

I suspect history will not judge him well