Calls for his resignation, a slump in national polls and byelection losses have yet to deter Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Liberal leader insists he will remain at the helm of his party in the next federal election, no matter what. Here are the reasons why his resignation remains unlikely at this point.
A personal fight
The prime minister’s decision to stay on as party leader dates back almost a year, he told Duty a liberal source close to the leader. “He will not go back on his decision, whatever happens,” she assures.
The Liberal leader’s most important motivation? To personally confront Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre in the next federal campaign.
“It’s his personal fight,” our source says.
Because for Mr. Trudeau, the fight against Pierre Poilievre is also a fight for Canadian democracy.
“Canadians need to understand that they will have an important choice to make in the next election regarding the type of country we are,” he said the day after his defeat in the by-election in the Montreal riding of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun.
His work at the head of the Liberal Party of Canada (PLC) is also closely linked to his “raison d’être”, he confided to journalist Stephen Maher, the author of a biography on the Prime Minister published earlier this year.
“That’s why I got into politics: to have big debates about who we are as a country and what our future holds. And that’s what this next election is going to be about — because the contrast between the vision Mr. Poilievre is proposing and what we work for every day couldn’t be clearer,” he writes in the book.
Not giving up the race seems all the more important to him as the prospect of a future Conservative government seems increasingly likely. In addition to trailing the Conservatives by about 20 points in national voting intentions, the Liberals have lost two byelections in strongholds in Toronto and Montreal in the past three months.
The Prime Minister’s entourage recalls that he has often been underestimated in the past, but that he always manages to get back on track, as during his two re-elections as head of a minority government, in 2019 and 2021.
A tight schedule
Since the breakdown of the agreement with the New Democratic Party, the Liberal government could fall at any time within the next year.
The Conservatives have already announced their intention to table motions of no confidence in the House of Commons to trigger an early election. The Liberals will need the support of at least one other party in the House to survive confidence votes and remain in power.
This new context of instability leaves them very little room to maneuver to launch a proper leadership race. This is one of the reasons why the Liberal caucus is not demanding a change of leadership at the moment, explains our source. “We know we don’t have time for that,” she confides.
New Brunswick Liberal MP Wayne Long is the only one to publicly call for a change of leader, in the wake of the Liberals’ defeat in the Toronto-St. Paul’s byelection in June. Last week, Montreal Liberal MP Alexandra Mendès said “there should be a change of leader” but that it is not a “personal wish” at the Liberal caucus in Nanaimo, B.C.
In addition to having to organize a leadership race in an unpredictable context, the party would have very little time to present its new leader to the public.
During his recent appearance on the radio show The day (is still young)the prime minister dismissed the idea of ”doing a Joe Biden”, in reference to the American president’s decision to give up his place as Democratic candidate in the middle of the presidential campaign in the United States.
“There is a beginning of optimism [chez les Canadiens]but we’re not quite there yet. With interest rates falling, inflation heading in the right direction […]we feel that it’s getting better and better. And I hope so, because it’s pretty bad for me, at the moment,” he admitted to the microphone.
Another losing option
For a long time, several names of leadership aspirants have been circulating behind the scenes of the Ottawa Parliament: Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly, and former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, who recently became special advisor to the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) on economic growth.
None of these candidates, however, seem to arouse more interest than the current Liberal leader.
An Angus Reid Institute poll conducted this summer found that a change in party leadership would not close the party’s 20-point gap with the Conservatives.
“Everyone agrees that no one else can stop Poilievre from coming back,” our source said. “It’s [Justin Trudeau]. There is no one else.”
Former Bank of Canada governor and Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland were the two potential candidates who received the most support among those surveyed this summer.
However, the proximity of Mme Freeland’s relationship with the prime minister and Mr. Carney’s lack of political experience could hurt them in a race, McGill University professor Daniel Béland noted in an interview with Duty this summer.
The Liberals also don’t want to waste a new leader’s candidacy if they lose the next election — an avenue that seems likely given the party’s current numbers.
Let us recall that the PLC had begun a major reconstruction after being relegated, for the first time in its history, in 3e position in the federal elections of May 2, 2011 under Michael Ignatieff.
Faced with the disastrous results, the caucus elected Bob Rae as interim leader, while they waited to review the Constitution and rethink the party’s image. It took nearly two years before they elected their new leader, Justin Trudeau, in March 2013.