Justin Trudeau will lead the Liberals off a cliff. It's time for him to go.
The Liberals can still form government, but only if he leaves right now.
When you ride a train to the terminal station, you have to get off. It doesn’t matter how much you like trains; you can’t ride it into the maintenance yard. You have to get off at the end of the line.
For Justin Trudeau, the train has gone as far as it can possibly go. It is well beyond the terminal station, well beyond any remnant of civilization, and well into the wilderness.
If the Liberal Party is to have any hope of turning things around in time for the next election, Justin Trudeau needs to go, now. Not a week from now, not even tomorrow. Right now.
Unfortunately, the sycophants in Trudeau’s inner circle are spilling poison in his ear, isolating him from those who will tell him this harsh truth. The Prime Minister was reportedly prepared to step aside on Monday, until he was convinced by Ministers Marc Miller and Dominic LeBlanc not to do so.
Even further, that source claims that Katie Telford has only been patching calls from Liberal MPs through to Trudeau if they are from those urging him to stay, and blocking phone calls from those pressuring him to leave.
This is an even more cogent argument than the mess with Chrystia Freeland for why Trudeau must resign as Prime Minister, as Leader of the Liberal Party, and as MP for Papineau.
He has fully isolated himself from the real world, ensconced in a bubble where his advisors ensure he is constantly high on his own supply. He is so divorced from the average person that he is incapable of being an elected representative.
After Freeland’s resignation from her roles as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Trudeau was placed in the position of needing to shuffle his cabinet to fill the numerous vacancies.
Indeed, whether Trudeau stays or goes, there does need to be a Prime Minister and a cabinet to lead the nation. This is especially true under the spectre of fascism that Donald Trump has raised, with his threats to anschluss Canada.
A few current ministers changed their jobs: Anita Anand stayed on Transport but also took on Internal Trade, Gary Anandasangaree stayed on Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, while adding Northern Economic Development.
Steven MacKinnon not only stays as Minister of Labour, he also gains Employment and Workforce Development, giving him even more power to violate the rights of workers and unions; Justin Trudeau clearly approves of MacKinnon’s savagery against the labour movement.
Finally, Ginette Petitpas Taylor cedes Employment and Workforce development to MacKinnon, taking on the Presidency of the Treasury Board in exchange. I doubt that she will be any more respectful of the public service and their labour rights than Anita Anand was.
Things get more interesting with the new MPs joining Trudeau’s cabinet:
Élisabeth Brière becomes Minister of National Revenue, after previously serving as parliamentary secretary for various ministers responsible for social services, including Karina Gould and Ya’ara Saks.
Terry Duguid becomes Minister of Sport and Prairies Economic Development, after previously serving Trudeau as his parliamentary secretary. Curiously, former Olympic athlete Adam van Koeverden is not given the Sport portfolio, even though Duguid could have just been given Prairies alone.
Ruby Sahota takes Minister of Democratic Institutions, and also Southern Ontario Economic Development; she previously served as Government Whip, which means that when Trudeau wanted something unpopular, she’s the one who forced MPs to vote for it.
Rachel Bendayan takes Minister of Official Languages and Associate Minister of Public Safety, being promoted after serving as the parliamentary secretary to the now-absent Chrystia Freeland.
Darren Fisher joins as Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence; he has been around since 2015, but has previously only served on committees.
David McGuinty, brother of former Premier Dalton McGuinty, becomes Minister of Public Safety, after serving Trudeau faithfully as Chair of the National Security and Intelligence Committee, which handles materials with top secret classification.
Joanne Thompson, a relatively new MP, takes on the Minister of Seniors portfolio from Steven MacKinnon, as Trudeau focuses that attack dog on employment and labour.
Most of the people being promoted or shuffled in cabinet are being rewarded for their continued loyalty, at a time when a plethora of Liberal MPs are openly calling for Trudeau’s removal.
Most, with the obvious exception of Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, a friend of mine who has gone from an outspoken backbencher to our new Minister of Housing. Considering he had announced his retirement and endorsed a successor, to call this surprising would be an understatement.
Nate’s placement in cabinet is unique, but the tradeoff appears clear; the Prime Minister wants Nate to temper his public criticisms, and in exchange Nate will obtain the power to affect positive change on an issue that is important to him. Nate cares about making a difference, and he’s being given a chance to do so.
But by Nate’s own admission at today’s press conference, the runway to make that change will be short.
My own MP in Don Valley West, Rob Oliphant, who I am proud to call a mentor and whose riding association I serve on, consulted with our entire riding association on the position he should take regarding Trudeau’s future, and with our approval, called for Trudeau’s resignation and an open leadership contest to replace him.
I deeply respect Rob for taking that approach, and for setting an example for the rest of the Liberal caucus that they should consult their riding members as well. This afternoon, Rob called the new lineup of ministers a “caretaker cabinet” in an interview with J.P. Tasker on CBC’s Power & Politics.
And with the remarks of the three significant opposition parties in the House of Commons, I fully agree with Rob’s assertion. Many of the people who will be serving in this cabinet are talented, mind you, which Rob made emphatically clear. But the problem is not who serves in the cabinet; it is that they are serving in Trudeau’s cabinet.
But the question hangs in the air; will any of these new ministers last through a single Question Period before the government falls? Will any of them even have the opportunity to introduce a single piece of legislation?
Jagmeet Singh says that it doesn’t matter to him if the Liberals pick a new leader; he’s promised to vote against the next confidence measure when the House returns, regardless of whether Trudeau resigns.
Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre outdoes Singh with a political stunt, calling for Governor General Mary Simon to forcibly recall the House of Commons so that a confidence vote can be held.
Pierre, that’s not how any of this works! The Governor General only takes action when the Prime Minister, given the confidence of Parliament, provides the Governor General the advice to do so!
It’s called responsible government, and we teach school children about this in history class! King Charles III even recognized the 175th Anniversary of responsible government in Halifax last year.
Technically, the Governor General could prorogue or even dissolve Parliament without the advice of the Prime Minister; this is what we call a “coup d’état”, and would be the end of democracy.
But right now, Parliament isn’t even prorogued; it is merely adjourned, and that only ends when the Speaker of the House says so, not the Governor General, or god help us the King if he starts sticking his nose in our business.
While Poilievre’s theatrics may have no basis in material reality, he presents them confidently, so his supporters are thankful for the confidence of the lies. Perhaps you could call him a confidence artist.
Nonetheless, the Liberals have a single, narrow path through: if Trudeau prorogues parliament, appoints an interim leader, and then resigns as Prime Minister, the Liberal Party could hold a full leadership race within the time period where Parliament is prorogued.
In doing so, the interim Prime Minister and the “caretaker cabinet” could avoid facing the House until a new leader has settled into position, and had the opportunity to define themselves and their vision.
Let’s be perfectly clear; the odds of an outright Liberal victory under a new leader are very low. But the odds of a Liberal victory under Justin Trudeau are zero. Further, a new leader would have the potential to prevent Poilievre from winning a majority of seats.
This is more important than it appears, for a very simple reason: no matter which party wins the most seats in the next election, the Leader of the Liberal Party is given the first chance to test the confidence of the House because they are the party that governed prior to the election.
Even if the Conservative Party wins more seats than the Liberals, if they do not win a majority, the Liberals have the opportunity to keep governing if they can win the confidence vote.
What that means is that a new Liberal leader, distanced from Trudeau, could continue to govern with the votes of any combination of NDP, Bloc, and Green MPs; all three of those parties will have depleted their resources, and thus be unwilling to have another election so soon.
Surely, to do this while being the second-largest party would enrage the Tories; nonetheless, it is also exactly how the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy works, and it would be perfectly legitimate and fair.
This is the only chance for the Liberal Party of Canada to survive the 2025 Federal Election. It is a tight and winding path with many hazards, but if we walk it perfectly, we will find our way out of the woods back into civilization.
Justin Trudeau rose to power over the Liberal Party through his promise of sunny ways. Those sunny ways never truly arrived, but when Trudeau and his enabling yes-men finally resign?
We will find the sunny ways that we were promised, and our country will be much better for it.