Justin Trudeau will go to an election this fall or he won’t be the Liberal leader in 2024.

And it’s because of the imminent end of the Conservative Party war of succession and the start of one in the Liberal party.

The current prevailing wisdom amongst most senior federal politicos is that there is no way Justin Trudeau will trigger an election this fall.

I don’t agree.

But to be fair, the case for Trudeau not triggering a fall 2022 election is strong. It’s also core to understanding how far Trudeau’s fortunes have declined if he actually decides to go to the polls in a few weeks. 

From a distance, there is solid rationale for Trudeau to see his current mandate through at least another year. If the goal of Trudeau going to yet another election is to try to get a majority government, Trudeau already has a working coalition with a listless NDP that allows him to govern like he has a majority without having to go to the polls.  It would be a huge gamble to drop the writ without inflation firmly under control or while Canadians are trying to cope with the financial impact of generationally unprecedented interest rate hikes. And, he needs time to rebuild the Liberal war chest from last fall’s failed bid to gain a majority.

Additionally, many who believe Trudeau will run again also argue that he needs time to craft an exit plan in case he outright loses or once again fails to win a majority government. While Trudeau certainly won’t starve after politics, he might have a problem finding gigs that keep his profile high over the long term. For example, the WE charity scandal may have closed the post-political philanthropic cocktail circuit to him. A guy with blackface pictures is a tough sell to be a brand spokesperson. He hasn’t accomplished the type of bold foreign policy that would propel him into the top ranks of multinational organizations. Catherine McKenna has arguably already cornered the market for former Canadian left wing politicians on the climate change policy speaking circuit. And inexplicably, Trudeau seems to have cast aside Gerald Butts - who for years was a key tactical mind behind Operation Trudeau - instead of leaning on him to pave a way for him out of the PMO.

So, there are a lot of strong reasons why Trudeau – should he decide to run again – will see this term of office out for as long as the NDP will allow him to do so.

However, the decisions of political leaders often defy the logic of pundits, and there is one deeply compelling reason why Justin Trudeau is considering an election this fall: the end of the post-Harper Conservative war of succession and the start of the post-Trudeau succession war in the Liberal party. 

Political wars of succession stem mostly from the simple fact that there is nothing that unites a caucus of elected officials like the possibility of winning a general election, forming a cabinet, and effecting change from the governing benches. Conversely, there is nothing that divides a caucus like staring down the barrel of a potential general election loss (or three). If a leader’s prospects of winning are dim, the knives come out.

I have served under leaders who have had it both ways, and now so has Trudeau. And I would be very surprised if he wasn’t considering this issue in the context of whether to pull the pin on an election in September.

To hammer this home, consider the current state of play in the Liberal caucus.

The Trudeau government is getting long in the tooth; someone born in the year he became Prime Minister will be entering grade two in a few weeks. Trudeau hasn’t ever found a way to reinvent himself enough to both overcome scandal and recast the magic of the 2015 election. The Aga Khan island episode, the Kokanee grope incident, the blackface photos, the SNC Lavalin scandal and the termination of Jody Wilson-Raybould, WE Charity funding, COVID wedge politics, ballooning debt, inflation and more have steadily eroded his brand.

His dismal approval numbers are a glaring proof point of this fact. While a single set of approval numbers aren’t a case for long term concern, they’ve been trending downward for some time now. Trudeau has burned a lot of capital with his caucus and his cabinet to toe the line on scandal and incompetence. Declining winnability means it will be harder to go back to the well for support if the team begins to seriously wonder if he’s a liability to their future success, as many are probably doing this summer.

By now, some of his backbench in swing seats will legitimately be worried about holding their riding in the next election if Trudeau remains leader. They are hearing serious concerns about him for the first time from people who have voted for them since 2015. They will be worried about the party’s movement further and further away from the political centre, where the bread and butter of Liberal voters have traditionally been. 

So with more and more Liberal-Conservative swing voters calling Liberal MPs about inflation, passport wait times, airport irritations, immigration backlogs and more, the Trudeau PMO is probably already having a harder time finding Liberal MPs willing to diffuse issues by parroting PMO talking points in the media to cover for bad policy or incompetent Ministers and senior Liberal staffers. It’s a dumb political move to take on water for a guy that is already dragging down your local support.

On that point, I would bet Trudeau’s name and picture have already quietly found their way off the websites and advertising material of many Liberal MPs. I’ll bet PMO communications staffers will find a lot of their Parliamentary Secretaries mysteriously unavailable to put themselves in the hot seat for the evening political talk shows. And I believe there will be a lot more open grumbles at caucus dinners and group chats once Parliament resumes. And while publicly I’m sure that if pressed, the Liberals will continue to put on a good front, it’s clear to anyone looking closely that the Liberal caucus is starting to keenly understand what it’s like to be asked to unite behind someone who is losing the capacity to win.

While it might be tempting for some Liberals to dismiss all this, increasing numbers of Liberal caucus members are already showing public signs of discontent with Trudeau’s leadership. There are more off-PMO-script questions and votes within Parliamentary Committees by Liberal MPs. More MPs are being openly critical of Trudeau on a not-for-attribution basis with opinion columnists. And then there are the big examples, like Liberal MP Joel Lightbound’s public and well rationed criticism of certain Liberal COVID restrictions.

On top of this, after seven years of government, Trudeau has mostly lost two powerful levers with the sizable Liberal MP class who were first elected in 2015. First, Liberal MPs who were elected in 2015 will no longer be worried about being let go by the Liberal party if they go off script before they hit their six year pension eligibility mark (the six year mark for that class was last fall). Second, the more ambitious members of his backbench will have figured out that if they haven’t made his cabinet by now they never will, and being asked to hold the water for his failures is unlikely to get them a promotion.

But the most important hold Trudeau has lost over his caucus is this: Trudeau’s approval numbers, last year’s failure to gain a majority, and his scandals have meant many MPs may have lost confidence in his ability to continue to win elections.

Some Liberals will scoff at the notion that Trudeau is no longer the party’s best asset to win an election. That may well be the case. But what does the future hold for the Liberal Party if its current best asset has permanently lost the ability to win a majority government?

The answer lies in the behaviour of Trudeau’s cabinet and senior circle of influencers. Trudeau’s most competent cabinet Ministers are probably realizing that they’d be in any leader’s cabinet, not just Trudeau’s. They’re also probably reaching a point of resentment for covering for the mistakes of cabinet colleagues who are better sycophants than leaders (read: Melanie Joly). And the most prominent members of cabinet are eyeing Trudeau’s sustained lack of resonance with Canadians and realizing that with a bit of effort they have the potential to become more electable than Trudeau is now.

There are signs that these Liberal leadership potentiates are trying to do just that.

Between speaking tours, biographies, fundraisers, and flexing of policy muscle, it’s clear that Chrystia Freeland, François-Philippe Champagne, Anita Anand, and even Marco Mendocino are laying track for a leadership bid in case Trudeau’s “best Liberal asset” status formally changes. There are others, too. Mark Carney’s name is perpetually thrown around (but no Liberal is certain he’s serious about running for the top job). But there are more likely and interesting names popping up with greater frequency. For example, in Toronto, Amanda Alvaro’s name is being bounced around as a potential successor.

But while the talk of who comes next after Trudeau started some time ago, it might be landing differently for Trudeau come the resumption of Parliament in September than it ever has before.

And that is because of the all-but-imminent change that’s about to happen in the Conservative Party caucus.

Trudeau has benefitted from the internal Conservative Party infighting that has been the Party’s leitmotif since the dying days of the Harper majority government.

But the nearly decade long internecine Conservative Party war of succession between the respective leadership juntas of Andrew Scheer, Maxime Bernier, Peter Mackay, Erin O’Toole and Pierre Poilievre is about to come to an abrupt end because Poilievre is poised to decisively establish primacy. And once that happens, Trudeau will no longer have the luxury of perilously bad Liberal policy and scandal being continuously overshadowed by a brilliantly destructive internal Conservative war that lasted for nearly a decade and three general elections.

That’s because contrary to what some pundits are saying, a first ballot Pierre Poilievre win will not result in a schism in the Conservative Party. Rather, it will decisively end the war of succession.

Here’s why.

Former post-Harper Conservative Party leaders Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole both won their leaderships via multiple rounds of down balloting in a preferential ballot system, which had the effect of never really giving them a solid mandate. This meant that neither of them could really escape the gravity of Stephen Harper’s influence within the party or the aspirations and grudges of malcontents. The result of this was that the Conservative party never truly coagulated after Harper’s defeat. However, all signs are pointing to a decisive first or at most, second ballot Poilievre victory in September. Poilievre will have the clear mandate Scheer or O’Toole never really were viewed as having. (The same effect respectively happened in the Liberal Party with Stephane Dion, Michael Ignatieff and Justin Trudeau.)

Unlike Scheer and O’Toole, Poilievre will also have the benefit of beginning his tenure with a significant social media reach and national presence. He won’t need the amount of time or party resources to introduce himself to Canadians that Scheer and O’Toole did. How the leadership race has been played will also immediately deliver the levers of power in the Party to Poilievre; that is the Conservative Fund, the National Council, the caucus leadership, and the dozen or so significant external influencers who have the actual capacity to sabotage a Conservative leader.

Further to this, unlike Scheer and O’Toole, Poilievre won’t have to manage the machinations of a viable challenger who wants his job or to grind an axe. Discontent but well-intentioned players on the poles of the party will come to realize - if they haven’t already -  they will have more capacity to affect change within the tent than going at it alone because all major players of the past two decades will have spent their capital running in leadership campaigns and will have lost. And those who simply want to cause trouble or who have an axe to grind will have a hard time finding fertile ground for revolution. Put another way, after this leadership contest, there won’t be anyone left who could realistically lead, finance or organize a group of dissidents from any wing of the party in any meaningful way. There will be no ammo left to fire, and no generals left on the field.

Andrew Scheer had Bernier, O’Toole, MacKay, Poilievre, and Charest all looming in the background immediately after his win. Erin O’Toole had Poilievre, Charest, and assorted others. But after September 10, 2022, Highlander: The Movie, Conservative Party War of Succession EditionTM will be over – only Poilievre will be left standing.

In all seriousness, any behind-the-scenes agitators that facilitated the Scheer and O’Toole ousters might, having vanquished all other opponents, finally be satiated with the influence and policy direction that a Poilievre led Conservative Party will offer them. There is a good chance that swords will be put down and everyone will take a breather. I would argue that at this point, everyone is weary of the broad impact of the post-Harper internal war of succession. Many caucus and senior politicos just want to get on with trying to earn the right to govern under some measure of stability. There is a certain appeal to the prospect that significant work could actually be accomplished under a longish-term reprieve from what has been nearly a decade of near continuous internal bullshit.

And for the first time in several years, come what may, a realistic possibility exists that this internal warfare might blessedly be over.

And finally, on the all important point of a leader’s team thinking they might be able to win an election, it’s clear that a significant portion of both the party caucus and membership wholeheartedly believe Poilievre can do just that. Scheer and O’Toole did not hold this sentiment within caucus to the same extent that Poilievre will after he wins. This means campaign volunteers and financing will be easier to come by, and the caucus may be better behaved with the prospect of a cabinet position being on the table.

So, Poilievre will be afforded a critical necessity that neither Scheer or O’Toole were granted – a launch marked by relative peace amongst Conservative caucus and senior Conservative politicos. This will give the Conservative team the stability it needs to focus on Trudeau as an external opponent as opposed to forcing Poilievre to focus on preventing the caucus from trying to rid itself of him.

I see all of this as very, very bad news for Justin Trudeau.

There is absolutely zero chance Justin Trudeau hasn’t privately made these observations himself. Trudeau is no stranger to what happens when a leader slowly loses the support of their party and the electorate while the opposition party gets its act together. He was affected by it as a Liberal MP under the failed bids of Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff. And he has benefitted from it as Liberal leader during the 2015 election campaign against Harper and to today.

An election loss to Pierre Poilievre would be catastrophic for Justin Trudeau’s personal brand. He will do everything in his power to prevent that from happening.

And therein lies Trudeau’s case for a fall 2022 election.

Trudeau is very likely to have a vastly larger caucus and activist problem than Poilievre will as a fresh leader over the same x-axis of time. At this point, it is only a matter of time before Trudeau’s would-be successors and their assorted agitators become more emboldened and start to stage more robust attempts to sabotage him. Once the snowball of caucus malcontent gathers critical mass, a leader has a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping it.

The only real tool Trudeau now has to prevent this from happening is to call a fall 2022 election. 

A fall writ drop would make it much harder for deep malaise against Trudeau to really set into the Liberal Party apparatus; they’d all be fighting for their seats instead of plotting against him. If he won a snap election, he would have more time to consider the path his future might take without risking defeat. And, it would be much more difficult for Poilievre to consolidate and effectively use his new power if he was forced into a general election while being brand new to the role. A fall 2022 election would also have the corollary benefit of allowing Trudeau to avoid having to deal with the electoral calculus and potential caucus drama that will ensue after new riding boundaries and additional seats come into play in the near future.

A fall 2022 election would be a giant Hail Mary pass for Trudeau, to be sure. And while campaigns matter, he didn’t deliver a majority as recently as a year ago and there isn’t any compelling evidence to suggest that Canadians have  fallen in love with him again in the last twelve months. But for Trudeau, trying to keep the wheels on the bus of a restless Liberal Party while in coalition with the NDP for two or three more years is probably a bigger challenge than attempting to defeat Poilievre in a snap fall 2022 federal election.

A true-believing senior Liberal organizer, or one that hasn’t lived through a longer cycle of government, might scoff at the prospects of Trudeau wanting to fire up the war room over the next couple of months. They might believe that Trudeau can hold a coalition with the NDP for two years simply because Jagmeet Singh has never been able to catch fire and they don’t believe he ever will. They might believe that the Liberals might easily be able to simultaneously juxtapose Trudeau over the upcoming American presidential cycle in a way that will yield another general election victory for the Liberals. And they will be banking on the wheels falling off a Poilievre led Conservative Party before the wheels fall off the Liberal Party, just as they did under Scheer and O’Toole.

But none of this is in the cards for the Liberals this time around.

Again, Poilievre will be enjoying a period of stability in his caucus while Trudeau is seeing a decrease of the same in his. For the first time during his tenure as Liberal party leader, the caucus unity tables will be firmly turned on Trudeau, with the Conservatives in better shape than the Liberals.

That’s because the tools that Trudeau has traditionally used to sow problems in the Conservative caucus while uniting the Liberals aren’t going to land  in the Conservative Party the same way they have in the past. Things like social legislation, comparison to American politicians, legislation that puts the Quebec caucus at odds with the Western caucus, or positions that create divisions between the caucus and the broader electorate won’t be able to take root due to the nature of Poilievre’s victory and the leadership campaign itself. Poilievre will be afforded significantly more latitude by the Conservative Party caucus than Scheer or O’Toole ever were. The caucus will be more willing to allow him to make and recover from missteps, sort out matters internally, and less likely to do something to undermine his internal credibility. With the war of succession over, there won’t be as many internal agents within the Conservative Party willing to leverage traditional Trudeau Liberal traps to help divide the caucus and sabotage the leader, as was the case with both Scheer and O’Toole.

Fingers crossed, anyway.

Meanwhile, I am certain the Conservative party will use post-war stability to launch more focused political attacks to litigate Trudeau’s record.

I know the people behind the Poilievre victory understand the critical importance of a cohesive political narrative and subsequent caucus message discipline. The Liberal PMO certainly has enforced message discipline in their caucus and has won three elections because of it. The most senior people behind the Poilievre victory – many of whom are veterans of Stephen Harper government - will rightly have little tolerance for the lack of winning election narrative or clarity on key issues that have dogged successive losing federal Conservative campaigns. This will make it much harder for Trudeau to pull the Conservatives in a million different directions and make a counter narrative stick. It will also make it easier for the Conservatives to land punches on Trudeau’s record.

That’s not to say the Conservative Party post-leadership will be all peaches and roses, or that certain issues that have dogged the party will magically resolve themselves. Neither am I making an argument that the end result of the war of succession justifies the manner in which it played out.

But the end of the war does present opportunities for hope that haven’t existed for years.

The war has taken a toll on the Party and its brand. No amount of threats or incentives are a substitute for the time, action and maturity needed to actually regrow trust and reset how the team functions. But with the war of succession over, there will finally be the stability needed for a leader to work on these issues, should they so choose.

A tight, resonant, but conservative election message that attracts swing voters is also needed. Conservative MPs who were elected post Harper government will need to figure out how to express themselves within the bounds of what will certainly be tighter message discipline expectations needed for the team to win a general election. With the war being over, the leadership team will be able to be more focused on this than putting out internal fires.

The Party will also have to be ready for the impending massively negative campaign the Liberals will without doubt run against Poilievre. But again, the end of the war will make it harder for these tactics to knock the team off course.

This leadership race is a brutish final act to nearly a decade of Conservative Party history pockmarked by infighting. In the aftermath, it will be critical for the post-war Conservative Party to quickly relearn how to constructively work together, and earn the trust of broader groups of Canadians we need on board to earn the right to govern but that might not have full overlap with Pierre Poilievre’s leadership following. That includes Liberal/Conservative moderate swing voters that Scott Aitchison and Jean Charest have made a particular point of reaching out to, and Canadians from numerous cultural communities that Patrick Brown was attempting to bring into the fold.  

However, I really do believe that while Trudeau won’t give Poilievre time to do this, he will be given the time and opportunity by the Conservative Party apparatus without the internal war continuing.

That would be a good thing for Canada.

Conversely, I don’t believe the Liberal Party will keep giving Trudeau unlimited grace and favour if he keeps exchanging it for inflation, polarization of the party to the far left, and scandal.

Change in this matter would be a good thing for Canada too.

This means that if Trudeau doesn’t go to a fall election, he’ll likely be praying for a miracle that will completely reverse his current personal political fortunes (read: firing up the attack ad machine to pump out content against the Conservative Party and Pierre Poilievre and hoping something sticks) while planning an exit that culminates with a Liberal leadership race within the next 18 months. Short of a miracle happening for Trudeau, I don’t see how the Liberals could actually be dumb enough to allow him to take them perilously close to a general election without a robust leadership contest that at least attempts to insulate them from the war of succession my party went through or the one the Liberals went through post Chrétien. 

And I don’t see Trudeau, acting training considered, being unaware of the fact that when it's time to leave the stage the options are to go off on your own volition or risk having the curtain closed on you. And as a boxer, I see Trudeau valuing an undefeated record more than walking into a fight under conditions where victory is not certain. His past actions dictate that there is no planet in which Trudeau will let either Jagmeet Singh, Pierre Poilievre or the Liberal caucus determine his future.

Either way, barring a political surprise of epic proportions or the NDP growing a spine, I believe Canada will either be in a fall 2022 general federal election or the federal Liberal Party will be kicking off a leadership race in the fall of 2023. There are too many variables, at the time of writing, to predict the outcome of the next general election itself.

That said, this week I’m dusting off my campaign signs and scouting out campaign space, while prepping for the fall Parliamentary session.

Back on the horse, giddyup.