Trudeau may announce decision to leave before Monday
But Canada needs the certainty a general election will provide, not more Liberal Party drama.
Senior journalists are posting that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to trigger a leadership race within the Liberal Party by Monday.
And, evidence suggests that he will make this move rather than trigger a badly needed general election. This highly irresponsible and supremely self-serving decision would plunge Canada into a prolonged period of additional instability during a time of crisis.
Here’s what the rumour mill is saying, what's likely to happen next, as well as the implications of what all of this utter horseshit could mean for you, your family, and your business.
1.) Why are people saying that Justin Trudeau is about to trigger a Liberal Party leadership race?
Late Friday night, news leaked out of the federal Liberal caucus that their Caucus Chair, Brenda Shanahan, had called a meeting of the party's national caucus of Members of Parliament for Wednesday. The meeting is scheduled to be a whopping six hours long. This meeting has been scheduled as Mr. Trudeau has faced increasing calls for his resignation from self-interested Liberal Members of Parliament, whom he passed over for cabinet positions in a shuffle that happened right before Christmas, and who are seeing their polling numbers plummet.
This news could be interpreted as evidence that Trudeau will announce that he's preparing to immediately trigger a leadership race for two reasons. First, Brenda Shanahan is known internally to the Liberal caucus as being a servant of Mr. Trudeau's Prime Minister's Office - that is, she likely never would have called this meeting on her own volition or not at his behest. Second, there is no way in hell that Trudeau would have asked her to schedule a six hour caucus meeting this far out from the resumption of Parliament if he was sticking around. Subjecting himself to a six hour lambasting session three weeks ahead of the resumption of Parliament is not on brand for him, to put it mildly.
So the six hour caucus meeting is presently being interpreted by the Ottawa gossip mill as a sign that a) Trudeau has made his decision to ask for a leadership race to replace him to be called and that b) the Liberal caucus will be tasked with a series of decisions related to that process at their Wednesday caucus meeting.
Additional evidence to support this theory is that the front runners to potentially replacement Mr. Trudeau have already been burning the phones to line up support.
2.) Does that mean Trudeau is going to immediately quit as Prime Minister, too?
That point is unclear. Section 44 of the Liberal Party's constitution requires that the party's National Board of Directors select an Interim Leader in the event that their present leader triggers a leadership race. However, nothing in that document expressly prohibits that Interim Leader from being the person who just announced their intent to resign.
So, the price Mr. Trudeau exacts from his caucus for his resignation may be the ability to stay on as the Party's interim leader. Yesterday, the Globe and Mail reported as much, stating that he had been looking for ways to remain on as leader while the process to replace him plays out. This move would allow Trudeau to have some control over the process by which his replacement is chosen, keep his cabinet picks and senior staff on the payroll for a while longer, and look for new jobs for himself while still holding the title of Prime Minister of Canada.
But Trudeau could outright quit instead (and not trigger an election). According to the Liberal Party constitution, this effectively means that rather than asking Canadians who they want to be Prime Minister in a general election, a handful of unelected insiders who run the Liberal Party of Canada would be allowed to choose an Interim Leader, who would immediately become Prime Minister of Canada.
3.) Wait….so the Liberals are going to have a leadership race instead of an election?? How long is that going to take?!?
Yes, that's precisely what all of this nonsense could mean. It's unclear how long the Liberals would deign to ask Canadians to put their lives on hold while the party attempts to sort its internal drama out. If Trudeau does trigger a leadership race, the details of the selection process and its length would likely be discussed at their six-hour caucus meeting next week.
3.) But….surely the New Democratic Party would vote non-confidence and trigger an election instead of letting the Liberals get away with this, right??
LOL. Probably not.
First, it's entirely possible that if he’s decided to trigger a leadership race, Trudeau might ask the Governor General to prorogue (suspend) Parliament before doing so and that she would grant this request. This action would prevent Parliament and its committees from meeting and shut down a Conservative attempt to force a non-confidence vote as early as the end of January. That means that the NDP wouldn't be forced to vote on whether or not they will keep propping up the Liberals.
Second of all, prominent Members of the NDP, as well as Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, have been out in recent days trying to spin hogwash that the best way to deal with the threat of tariffs from incoming American President Donald Trump is not the fresh, clear mandate a general election would afford a government, but to continue to allow the Liberals to keep failing about with utter ineptitude. This messaging, of course, should be translated to read as “I don’t want an election so that I can vest my pension / accrue more benefits to my pension / collect a salary as long as possible before potentially losing my seat.” So if Trudeau doesn’t prorogue, based on the fact the NDP continued to prop up the Liberals all fall, look for members of the New Democratic Party to start justify continued efforts to prop the Liberals up while the country burns and Liberal insiders select new Prime Minister(s) with some variation on the following bullshit messaging, “we want to be courteous and respectful and allow a Liberal leadership race to happen”.
(NB: I fully expect the NDP to continue to support the Liberals even after they select a new leader, too. At the end of the summer, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh claimed to have “ripped up the supply and confidence agreement” with the Liberals yet continued to vote confidence in the Liberal government, so any declaration that the NDP will topple the Liberals in the future should be assessed with skepticism. Singh’s leadership will probably come to an end after the next general election, and many of his caucus members are retiring, so they all want to keep their paycheques coming for as long as possible. If the Liberals lose in the next election, the NDP also (thankfully) could lose their influence over government policy, so they will want to keep their current arrangement in place as long as possible. But that’s a topic for another column.)
4.) What does all of this mean for the country?
It means very bad news. Here’s why.
A handful of Liberal insiders will likely pick the next, and possibly the next two, Prime Ministers, depending on whether Justin Trudeau stays on as Interim Leader or not. All of these people have been complicit in the Liberals incredibly toxic, damaging, nine-year reign of destruction. From Chrystia Freeland to Mark Carney, all of the frontrunners to replace Trudeau have either crafted the policies that have caused rampant inflation, debt, and crime, voted for these policies without compunction, or both. And, none of the people calling for Trudeau’s resignation have attributed their decision to the Liberal’s disastrous policies - rather, to their crappy polling numbers and the ability of the Party to win with Trudeau at the helm. Said differently, there is no one in the Liberal Party apparatchik that has the credibility or the ideological compulsion to change course.
Additionally, if Trudeau is afforded a prorogation, Parliament could be suspended for months at a time of national crisis, to allow the Liberals to have a leadership without having to face a vote of confidence. A lame duck, Liberal insider selected Prime Minister would be tasked with addressing multiple crises of unaffordability, crime, and tariffs. A government with a clear, fresh mandate from the Canadian people will not be enabled because NO GENERAL ELECTION WILL HAVE BEEN CALLED.
Scrutiny of government decisions will be stymied. Months of political uncertainty will probably have a negative impact on financial markets and major business investment decisions, at a time when the Canadian economy is slowing. All of this is bad news for job creation, inflation, the housing crisis, and addressing crime.
5.) What should happen instead?
If Justin Trudeau has any ounce of compassion for our country, after all he’s put it through, he should call a general election and allow Canadians to decide who the next Prime Minister will be.
None of Trudeau’s caucus have opposed his leadership for his policies, and they only started calling for his head once their polling numbers started to tank. Worse, most of them only started to publicly complain after it was clear that they wouldn’t be getting into his cabinet. These are people who should all have to immediately face the electorate.
If Trudeau called a general election instead of enabling his party of limp stooges to hold the country hostage, the final chapter of his career could be marked by finally doing something that resembles the right thing.
But alas, if the rumour mill is to be believed, Trudeau will leave as he entered: a self-interested narcissist incapable of putting country first.
(I’ll be writing frequent updates as this situation unfolds. Please share this article and ask others to subscribe).