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October 14, 2024 - 10:00am
A growing number of MPs in Justin Trudeau’s governing Liberal caucus are gathering forces in a prospective party revolt to oust the unpopular Prime Minister, according to Canadian media sources. A top-secret document urging the leader to step down has reportedly been circulating among Liberal lawmakers since the government’s shock by-election defeat in the former stronghold of Toronto—St Paul in the summer. This was followed by another bruising loss in Montreal last month, which only reinforced the rebels’ case for a leadership change.
While the Prime Minister’s office was able to pre-empt and put down the last round of open dissent immediately following these political setbacks, the document’s signatories — consisting of about 20 MPs — are keeping their names and the details of their message under the strictest cover of confidentiality. Supposedly, the plan was to keep silent “until [the plotters] had strength in numbers”, but a contentious meeting of the caucus last Wednesday and now these latest revelations have alerted the Prime Minister and his allies to the gravity of the discontent. Trade Minister Mary Ng, who learned about the intrigue while accompanying the Prime Minister back from a summit in Asia, reassured reporters that she believed her boss still had enough caucus support to carry on as leader, though Trudeau himself has so far remained silent.
The turmoil comes as the ruling party’s fortunes appear to be in free fall, with consistently poor polling data for well over a year giving the impression that it is headed toward a catastrophic wipeout at the next election. Abacus Data shows Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives on track to win 43% of the national vote share to the Liberals’ 22%. To put this into perspective, Trudeau won his first and only majority government back in 2015 with 39% of the vote.
What’s more, one electoral map model using this data illustrates the depth of the Liberals’ troubles: it shows the vote-rich Greater Toronto Area, where Canadian elections are essentially won or lost, submerged in a blue Tory wave — and the Liberal seat count reduced to one. If these projections hold, the Liberals will be on track for possibly their worst defeat in history. The belated replacement of veteran campaign chair Jeremy Broadhurst with another party stalwart Andrew Bevan will likely do little to reverse these trends. which have been years in the making.
Commentators have pointed to mounting ethics scandals, botched immigration and climate policy, dissatisfaction among the youth over housing and electoral reform, and a general cost-of-living crisis as reasons for the steep decline in the government’s chances for re-election.
And though the next election had been scheduled for late 2025 — which could theoretically give the Liberal minority another year’s worth of breathing room — the end of its governing agreement with the New Democrats, the Tories’ constant attempts at pushing confidence votes, and the increasingly costly demands of the one remaining opposition party with whom they could work out a deal (the separatist Bloc Québecois), make an early election far more likely. Should the current plot succeed, however, Trudeau could instead go at the hands of his own fearful and exhausted MPs. It would be a merciful end to a political career that has gone on for much too long.
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SubscribeHe’s embarrassed us Canadians for far too long
He has done that, but you’re not alone.
He cannot go too soon.
Astonishingly similar to the Tories’ woes in Britain.
And even more astonishing that the current Labour government are doubling down on the unpopularity. Arguably the Conservatives were punished for their indolence and Labour will in turn be punished for their petty vindictiveness. Lessons have not (yet?) been learned.
Disagree. The UK Tories did no good but Castreau has only done evil.
There’s no way that most of those problems will get any better with a Conservative majority.
The endless teeter-tottering of Liberal/Conservative will never solve most of those problems. Just like the endless swing of Democrat/Republican won’t do it. A plague on both their houses.
The challenges that Canada and the world face are profound; they won’t be solved by incrementalism or regression.
The real work is done between the circuses of elections.
Sad but true. At least we’ll all gloat at Prince’s demise, useless but satisfying
Maybe the problems are not solvable, no one agrees on anything, but at least we won’t have to listen to the endless rhetoric on how he’s doing such a fantastic job for Canadians, when his major accomplishment will be doubling the national debt
I used to think that. I’ve since found that people tend to disagree (to the point of dysfunction) when issues are framed in terms of politics, but not so much when framed in terms of values. If one seeks out and proceeds with shared values, more often than not conversations can go to unexpected places when they would otherwise have been fouled and effectively shut down by reflexive, all-or-nothing tribal antagonism.
Maybe the problems can’t be solved, maybe they can only be outlasted and we’ll all end up enduring until the times change. But putting in any kind of administrator will help. Trudeau is helpless at governing. He isn’t even interested. All he wants from being prime minister is photo ops and election campaigns. We really need somebody who’ll at least mind the store while the storm blows by.
Oh, I wish the storm(s) would blow by! But I don’t think it (they) will. Or at least not all of them.
Given that POV, I think we need more than administrators, because administrators are about keeping the status quo functioning. I think we have some serious revamping work to do. I think we’ll need to insist on vision and courage. And even while we insist on that, I don’t think we can leave things up to leaders and the occasional routine of elections.
The federation is totally broken. Just look at a map of where the various parties win all their seats. Progressive politics only represents metro jurisdictions.
I looked at such a map, the one produced after the 2021 election by Elections Canada. It doesn’t show that progressive politics only represents metro jurisdictions.
For example, it shows that the NDP won in Nunavut, northern Manitoba, northern Ontario, and the western half of B.C. outside Vancouver.
Here is the map:
div > p:nth-of-type(7) > a”>https://electionsanddemocracy.ca/geography-elections-0/map-official-results-42nd-general-election
I don’t consider Liberals progressive, and most progressives don’t think so either, so I’d personally discount any notion that Liberal jurisdictions constitute progressive representation.
I think it’s also important to recognize the distortions that our FPTP electoral system produces.
Unfortunately for you liberals are crazy assed progressives do communists. While the rest of them are marxists.
And the anomalies you mentioned are propped up with government money.
Before you go calling anybody crazy, can you first make a coherent sentence please?
Who are Marxists, and what evidence do you have for such a claim?
Your claim that “Progressive politics only represents metro jurisdictions” was in error. Instead of acting in good faith and taking responsibility, you instead move the goalpost and say it’s an “anomaly.”
Except those non-metro regions mapped by Elections Canada are not anomalies. They have often chosen NDP representatives.
Government money props up all regions in a myriad of ways. Hospitals and health care, schools and training, basic infrastructure, seniors support, pensions, industry subsidies, on and on.
Sorry, it’s not every non metro jurisdiction. It’s all jurisdictions that exist economically through commodity production. As to the liberal government being communist, just listen to Trudeau explain any of his policies. And the rest Marxist. Google Anne McGrath, the national director of the NDP. She liked talking about her Marxism. You want some anecdotes?
And yes, if non-metro jurisdictions economic viability is via government handout, then they vote ndp. In a very real way, commodity production props up the canadian economy. Not government handouts.
Btw, I read your original post now. I agree, no federal political party has had an answer for vote buying after Quebec became the vote buying bloc. The only answer is a new deal.
Okay, thanks Bret. I think a good portion of the intensity of disagreements is caused by misunderstanding what people really mean. There’s no value spending time and energy taking a position on what others say if we’re not clear on terms they use — on how they see the world and why they see it that way. It’s very easy in the political arena to get caught up in disputes where the parties assume there is at least a shared understanding of terms, when in fact there isn’t. So off we go, when the first step should have been to get clear on what each other actually mean. It looks like we know, but so often it’s not true.
So for example, you can say Trudeau has “communist” policies, and I can say he doesn’t, and it goes on and on, but are we sharing a common meaning in the first place?
Like, I’ve read Das Kapital, and a biography of Marx. I’ve listened to and read contemporary Marxist economists. Not because I’m a communist or Marxist, but because I wanted to learn about the subjects.
Which means my conception of what constitutes Marxism and communism is pretty specific. I’ve found that many times when people use those same terms they use them more loosely than me, as critical shorthand for government policies that support the commons. They may believe the terms literally apply, even when they don’t — yet they may apply according to the person’s looser definition. So it’s important to know how they’re being used or we’re just talking past each other.
You said that “communism” applies to any Trudeau/Liberal policies. So let’s take the case of their policy of subsidizing the oil and gas industry. Is that communist? They also implemented the Harper government’s reduced funding formula for transfer payments to provinces. Was that also communist?
You claim that “the rest” are Marxist, without evidence for that claim. Then you singled out Anne McGrath of the NDP. This is one of those examples where I need to know what you mean. If what you have as evidence are “anecdotes,” I could take a look at those sources to understand what you mean, if not necessarily to expect evidence of literal Marxism. I’ve googled her but a reference to Marxism in the listings didn’t pop up.
You should go to a political debate in a university jurisdiction in the next federal election. There you will meet the Marxist party and the communist party. They give you literature to bring home. The communist one is a political pamphlet exposing what will happen to you if you don’t follow der leaders orders. The Marxist are various scientific papers proving why giving der leader all your money is in your best interests. They are different and they don’t like each other. Trudeaus liberals are stealing voters from the communist party while the ndp is stealing voters from the Marxists.
(You can’t get elected if you call yourself Stalin)
The above is what I mean.
You are of course correct. Trudeau doesn’t believe in anything. Which is why he’s so confused why people don’t like him. I can see it from his point of view. He’s more than willing to spend as much of others peoples money to buy your vote so why doesn’t everyone love him.
He’s basically playing emperor.
He was doing OK till he was not. For me when he became severely dogmatic about gender issues and DEI was big let down. Without consulting/supporting women, families and most working class Canadians he shut us out making us feel that our opinions weren’t valid and that we were being bigoted. The Canadian MSM bear most of the blame for covertly touting his message. His refusal to step down earlier and allow a more favorable candidate to enter election shows his very disdain for his own party. Time to go Trudeau.
Canadians need to kick our woke Prime minister to the curb if not only for his outrageous bullying and slander of the unvaccinated during Covid.
He’s the worst dirtbag to ever occupy the office. He hates Canadian industry (especially in the West), has fanatical views of the environment, is utterly ignorant about human biology, supports Hamas, fuels inflation with endless government spending, paints himself black and calls other people racists, displays clear dictatorial desires (see truckers’ convoy), supports legalizing street drugs and killing addicts (those are the same thing FYI), and speaks like a wooden doll. I can’t think of a single redeeming feature.
It can indeed be argued that people who build fossil fuel pipelines have fanatical views of the environment.
Trudeau should stay so we get the satisfaction of voting him out of power.