By Tom Parkin
December 17th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
There’s no path forward for the Liberals under Trudeau but he still has some cards to play in his succession.
Over the past few days Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to pull one of the clumsiest internal Liberal purges ever. He’s pulled a few before. Never well.
There was a time when they were a great team – or at least that was what we thought.
Trudeau gambled everything that Finance Minister Christian Freeland would volunteer to destroy herself in order to save him. The PM told Freeland he was going to demote her, but first she would hang a $61 billion deficit on herself. Then he’d sack her and bring in Mr. Clean Up, aka Mark Carney.
It’s incredible that he believed she would play her role in his script. But evidently he thought she would, or at least might.
Now his plan is a shambles.
Cornered, Trudeau’s only call is whether to quit or be fired
There are no opportunities for the opposition to vote non-confidence in Trudeau before the Commons rises for a winter break later this week.
But Trudeau has got to go soon.
It’s unlikely he can hang on more than a couple weeks as he and his Liberal MPs let it sink in that his time is up.
Are there any leaders in this picture?
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh yesterday called on Trudeau to quit. If Trudeau refuses and is still prime minister when the Commons returns from its break, the NDP will vote non-confidence when the opportunity arises. Trudeau will shortly after be fired by the Canadian people in a snap election.
Especially after what’s just happened, surely that’s a terrible option for the Liberal Party.
The Commons is scheduled to return on January 27. While Trudeau can delay the return by proroguing, using the controversial tool just to avoid the Commons a little longer changes nothing except to make it worse.
Trudeau has some say over the succession process
The alternative is to quit. A party leadership race would take at least a couple months to organize and complete, and could be a reasonable use of prorogation, but there are dangers.
Given the Liberal Party’s loose membership rules, a contested leadership vote could become a gong show. But it might be the preferred process if the goal is to give a better path for an outsider to take the reins.
The alternative is for caucus MPs to make an interim selection. Usually, an interim leader doesn’t compete for the permanent job. But there’s no rule.
In mid-November 2008, Stephan Dion announced his decision to resign pending the selection of an interim leader. In mid-December 2008 the Liberal caucus selected Michael Ignatieff as interim leader. In May 2009 Ignatieff won the Liberal Party vote as the sole candidate with 97 per cent support. And the rest is history.
The route of a caucus selection followed by party coronation is probably preferred by Chrystia Freeland. But it depends on Trudeau agreeing to it. Announcing a resignation is not resigning. The leader remains the leader until the position is vacated or replaced.
Trudeau can choose to resign in favour of a caucus-selected interim leader. Or hang on until the party makes a permanent selection. No doubt there will be appeals to Trudeau on both sides of this question and in the end the decision is his.
Members of the Liberal caucus refused to talk to media after listening to what the Prime Minister had to say.
Members of the Liberal caucus refusing to talk to media after listening to what the Prime Minister had to say.
Liberals will be focused on themselves
No matter what process Trudeau decides on, the transition will soon become the central Liberal focus.
And the opposition will not fail to repeat that the Liberals are focused on their own problems, not the problems of Canadians.
But there is no scenario in which Trudeau continues to be prime minister for much longer. And his announcement on the timing of his resignation and the process for his replacement has even less time.
I agree with Tom, but for different reasons, I don’t want Trudeau to step down or be ousted or be allowed to disappear into the library for a single malt and an honourable ending with his service revolver, No, Canadians haven’t suffered enough, they need to learn the lessons that schools do not teach anymore, the suffering must climb beyond the blue-collar workers, Tom also mentions a Utopia, which I covered in a previous post regarding the destabilization of a society to bring about an unspecified or unexplained utopia. Trudeau and Freeland follow a long line of historical figures who have tried and ultimately failed in this regard, remember, you voted for change.
I see no good reason that Trudeau should just quit. First off, I don’t have any idea what Liberal would replace him successfully, so if the Liberal members, basically his peer group, decide he has to go, then that’s a better route to me than him just quitting. Take the maximum time possible to figure this out.
If he does quit he’s a loser for sure, and Canada for sure I think with the negative political and economic chaos.
It will only lead to the chaos of lies and self- serving propaganda about the utopia they will bring from PP Conservatives and his fix of everything for everybody, at no net cost drivel. What can he do about the deficit and debt, and kill the carbon tax at the same time, and all the other umpteen promises, all at once too.? Something will have to be sacrificed and cut.
Or an unlikely victory result by Singh and NDP from this decision. Oh yeah, all these guys have the same economic and fiscal problems – these are givens.
The economic and fiscal matters are not just a few perfectly understood, perfectly deterministic simple systems that behave in simple ways.. They are not long-term stable and predictable.
A national economy is a complex system with complex causes, a system that is visibly unstable, unpredictable, or possibly out of control if the complexity is ignored for expediency.
To be governed needs a multitude of independent components accurately directed. I think that the Finance Dept and Minister were trying to do their duties with their large number of factors and tools providing some measure of the quasi independent components, together with measures of simultaneity of variables, to analyze and estimate policy effects.
The Finance Minister is advised by the Finance Dept, and they would give her their assessment of the budget policy and a $61 billion deficit, on top of the existing public debt.
The national economy will be subject to random external circumstances, such as Trump, the dollar, interest rates, and markets. Short term political assertions of demand decisions, do not mean there is a corresponding gain of ability to forecast large-scale trends.
My point – beware the claims of the magicians, the Merlin, the charlatans saying they can fix everything at no cost – not even cuts to Education, Health Care and Welfare, or several of the other Big ticket Government budget items.
What has he really done that the other sides would also have had to do anyways, to manage the same economic fluctuations, and negative cash flows, but seeking some of their own variation on their theme?
Once sellout Singh has his pension locked in on February 25, 2025, he will vote non confidence. His polling is flat to down and can use this to pick up a few more percentage points. NDPers are so blind they won’t realize the bait and switch.
Newsflash… Pierre Poilievre was eligible for his platinum pension long ago. Not to mention he lives in a taxpayer funded mansion with a chef, maid, limo, limo driver. Mr. Singh does not.
I cannot see any reason why Mark Carney would want to captain a sinking ship that May be out of power for 10 plus years.He has so many options that pay better.
What was Trudeau and Freeland’s goal, and what was the vision for Canada, this question should be posed to other Western leaders and should even be asked of MMW the current Mayor of Burlington.
The problem with ‘critical theorists’ is that they see a need for change, and they feel that that change would make everyone as happy as themselves, but the outcome they fashion for us always has the complete and opposite effect. To paraphrase author Carl Truman: Critical Theory Is not based on historical facts or society’s current norms, it is there to destabilize what exists and to exact revolutionary change toward a utopian goal: The problem though, is, that the destabilization of society is visible and understood but the goal of utopia is just some vague notion of what that change would maybe look like, if they can’t even satisfactorily explain it themselves they cannot possibly expect get buy-in so they ram it through.
Trudeau should take the short walk to the Governor General to end this charade and call an election. If he also chooses to run, so be it.
Any local MP’s who want to be tethered to Trudeau are welcome to do so.
Pure Speculation and hyperbole in this so-called article. Zero to little factual information.
Newsflash Tom the Liberal Party has been focused on themselves for quite a while.