I am submitting to you a very hypothetical scenario, a pure fruit of my imagination. Suppose I am a Liberal minister in Justin Trudeau’s government. Under my belt, I have a few feats of arms and a handful of political achievements. I enjoy a certain notoriety. I have the ambition to become Prime Minister one day. What should I do right now? I would have to think very seriously about resigning.
Let me explain.
Prime Minister Trudeau doesn’t have much credibility left. We only have to think of his record on Foreign Affairs, the housing crisis, the management of public funds, his numerous ethical problems and, more recently, his decline on the carbon tax with the suspension of the tax on heating oil.
By remaining a minister, I risk tarnishing my image and jeopardizing my chances as a potential successor at the head of the Liberal Party of Canada. There comes a time in politics when you have to make a break by dissociating yourself or distancing yourself.
Yes, there are scenarios in which it is relevant to be perceived as a dolphin. But this doesn’t work very often. A minister of Lester B. Pearson, a certain Pierre Elliott Trudeau, managed to succeed him as prime minister and win the 1968 election and several others. Same thing for Louis St-Laurent after Mackenzie King retired in 1948. In Ontario, Kathleen Wynne succeeded Dalton McGuinty by winning the 2014 election, only to lose in 2018. Lucien Bouchard retained power after Jacques Parizeau, but it was after only one mandate of the Parti Québécois.
This was not the case for Pierre Marc Johnson after René Lévesque, Daniel Johnson after Robert Bourassa, John Turner after Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Kim Campbell after Brian Mulroney or Bernard Landry after Lucien Bouchard. Even if Paul Martin did everything to distance himself from Jean Chrétien, he did not last very long at the head of the country.
On the other hand, Jean Chrétien lost to John Turner in 1986 in the Liberal leadership race and left politics to better return in 1990. Philippe Couillard left his post as minister in the Charest government in 2008, to better return in 2012. Peter MacKay left the Harper government by not running for the 2015 election. In 2020, after letting an election pass, he made an unsuccessful attempt at the Conservative leadership.
Some ministers should therefore very seriously reconsider their political future in light of these examples. They should resign to prepare to reposition themselves for the post-Trudeau era. At the very least, consider not running again.
Suspending the carbon tax on heating oil is political suicide for the Liberal government, plain and simple. There is not a scenario where this choice can be beneficial for Justin Trudeau. He opened Pandora’s box with this about-face on the environment, bringing with him all the ministers associated with it.
Since 2017, François-Philippe Champagne has served as Minister of International Trade, Infrastructure, Foreign Affairs and Industry. He is seen as the only minister with an economic vision focused on wealth creation, with his good moves to attract foreign investment to Canada. His famous promise to lower the price of the grocery basket and his discovery of circulars went badly, but that is the only downside to his record.
Leaving to better return is a very serious consideration for François-Philippe Champagne. He can return to law and wait, as Jean Chrétien did before him. Better to leave and choose the moment of your return, than to be forced to take over following Trudeau’s defeat, because we are among the survivors.
Same calculation for Minister Anita Anand. In a way, no one really believed that it was a promotion to go from Minister of Defense to Treasury Board. It’s no secret that Mme Anand has chieftaincy ambitions. She was Minister of Supply during the pandemic and the second female Minister of Defense in the country’s history. She can easily return to teaching while waiting for the right moment.
I admit to you that I do not envisage a hypothetical scenario in which Mélanie Joly would leave. The advantage of Foreign Affairs is that we are often abroad. We therefore benefit from our own media visibility, while not being directly associated with the problems in the country. She is also more popular than Justin Trudeau according to polls, and one of the best-known political figures.
Ultimately, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland, is in no better position than Justin Trudeau. The one that many see as her runner-up is proud to say that she does not have a car, because she lives next to a subway in downtown Toronto, which is not within everyone’s reach. She thinks she is setting an example by canceling her Disney+ subscription in difficult economic times. Unlike Mélanie Joly, it is impossible for her to dissociate herself from Justin Trudeau. We even wonder if it is not she who controls the country. Justin Trudeau’s record is his across the board.
Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of the United Kingdom, must be very happy not to have run for a Liberal MP seat in 2021. He has the freedom to criticize the government and to choose the moment of his return as a potential candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. Coincidence? He was in Ottawa on Tuesday and he took the opportunity to disavow the suspension of the carbon tax on heating oil decreed by Justin Trudeau and specified that he would have done things differently. He also took the opportunity to emphasize that he was not a career politician.
Enough to give food for thought to liberal ministers who have ambitions…