The end of the agreement between Justin Trudeau’s minority government and the New Democrats could dissuade Liberal MPs from demanding the departure of their leader.
Two former advisers to the political party believe that the possibility of elections being called in the coming months is likely to convince more than one that there is no time for a change of captain.
Still, they expect Trudeau to face adversity when he meets with his assembled caucus on Monday for a three-day retreat in Nanaimo, B.C.
“For me, the NDP’s withdrawal from the agreement makes Mr. Trudeau’s departure less likely. Is it impossible? Nothing is impossible in politics, but it would put the Liberals in a delicate position,” says Jeremy Ghio, director of the consulting firm TACT who worked with Minister Mélanie Joly.
If the Liberals nevertheless decide to push Mr. Trudeau out, “they would have to be prepared to go to an election with an interim leader, which is far from ideal,” he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Greg MacEachern, a former Liberal strategist who is now president of the lobbying firm KAN Strategies, believes the Liberals will have to “deal with current realities” rather than “figuring out what could be” differently.
“The end of the support and confidence agreement means that the runway for other avenues before the next elections is becoming increasingly short,” he sums up.
Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives have been leading the polls in voting intentions for about a year, and the Liberals are struggling to close the gap that puts them in second.
Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer met with the media in Nanaimo to send the message to Canadians that the Liberals are hurting their pocketbooks and that will continue to happen no matter who their leader is.
“They are all in agreement with the policies that have caused the crisis that all Canadians are facing, the affordability crisis. High prices are out of control, a direct result of Justin Trudeau’s inflationary policies,” he said.
Toronto-St. Paul’s failed test
For his part, Greg MacEachern expects the Liberal caucus to demand explanations from Mr. Trudeau on what has been done since the defeat in the by-election in Toronto-St. Paul’s.
The Conservatives won the Ontario riding in late June, snatching a seat from the Liberals that they had held for more than 30 years.
Wayne Long is the only Liberal MP who has publicly called for Justin Trudeau to step down. The MP, who has no plans to seek re-election, believes Canadians are no longer listening to the prime minister.
“I’m really worried that the good old ‘let’s keep calm and carry on’ […] “Do not put us on the path to victory in the next election,” the New Brunswick MP recently told The Canadian Press.
Many observers of the federal political scene saw the Toronto-St. Paul’s by-election as a test of Mr. Trudeau’s leadership and a potential indicator of the battle to come in the next general election.
“What I’m hearing from caucus and political staff is that they want to hear that the Prime Minister’s Office has heard them and is responding to their concerns,” MacEachern said.
Changes, but which ones?
He believes a simple way to address these dissatisfactions would be to make changes. But “there haven’t been many, other than Jeremy Broadhurst, in the party office,” said the former strategist, referring to the resignation of the Liberals’ national campaign director.
According to Jeremy Ghio, Mr. Broadhurst’s departure can be seen as an opportunity to bring renewal, but also as another blow to Justin Trudeau.
“Nevertheless, it gives the impression of hard blows piling up for Justin Trudeau. This time, it’s the departure of Mr. Broadhurst. Will Mr. Trudeau also see his lieutenant from Quebec leave for the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party? It’s not out of the question.”
Indeed, the Minister of Transport and political lieutenant of the Liberals for Quebec, Pablo Rodriguez, is thinking of making the jump to the provincial scene.
In any case, federal Liberal MPs could view the death of the agreement with the NDP in a positive light, since, Mr. MacEachern notes, some of them were not comfortable with this agreement.
These elected officials could therefore have the feeling that their party is becoming “red” again and abandoning the “orange-red”, he adds, mentioning that the retreat of the Council of Ministers seemed to him to be focused on the idea of ”taking care of business”.
“There have been signals from the Liberals that they are becoming more focused on business and the economy.”
In the eyes of Jeremy Ghio, one formula that the Liberals should adopt “is to put the emphasis on their team and less and less on Justin Trudeau”, because, according to him, the Prime Minister is their Achilles heel.
With information from Laura Osman