Will Trudeau step aside?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/04/2023 (1034 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One tragedy of politics is our leaders are often either unwilling or unable to leave on their own terms. One need look no further than our own province to see this. Former premier Greg Selinger survived a party rebellion that hoped to remove him as NDP leader, but badly lost the next election. And former premier Brian Pallister never had a chance to lose in an election after his own caucus compelled him to step aside.

These are the sorts of scenarios that are surely on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s mind as another federal election looms. The Liberal leader has now led his party to three election wins and been prime minister for almost eight years. He can brag about some important policy achievements during his time in office, including the Canada Child Benefit and the conclusion of agreements with provincial governments to introduce $10-a-day childcare.

But several headwinds facing Trudeau have some Liberals whispering about whether he is the best person to lead the party into the next election.

The first is that Trudeau has only managed to deliver a minority government for the Liberals in the last two elections. The Liberals’ minority status has left them vulnerable to confidence motions introduced by the opposition parties.

In this Parliament, Trudeau addressed this challenge by entering into a confidence-and-supply agreement with Jagmeet Singh’s NDP. In return for propping up the government, Trudeau was obligated to deliver on some key NDP policy priorities.

The question for Liberals is whether Trudeau has hit a ceiling in popular support, and whether another leader might have the appeal to return the party to a majority government.

The second and related concern is Trudeau has a way of becoming entangled in little scandals that are entirely of his own doing. And he never seems to change his behaviour to avoid the bad publicity that inevitably follows these.

The most recent example is Trudeau’s New Year’s family trip to an exclusive Jamaican resort owned by family friends who are also big donors to the Trudeau Foundation, which is currently beleaguered over revelations about its ties to the Chinese government. The trip cost taxpayers a whopping $162,000, an amount that is hard to swallow for many Canadians who can’t afford a simple family road trip let alone a luxurious Caribbean holiday.

If you are reminded of past Trudeau faceplants — the prime minister’s surfing trip to Tofino, his stay on the Aga Khan’s private island in 2016 that earned him a rebuke from the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commission — you aren’t alone. Journalists quoted anonymous sources from Trudeau’s own office who were exasperated by the prime minister’s trip, and who couldn’t figure out why he was so unwilling to learn from his previous mistakes.

The third concern is that Trudeau, despite some policy successes, seems to be running out of new ideas. This was recently exemplified by the Liberals’ trumpeting Trudeau’s filmed rebuke of a pro-life student at the University of Manitoba, which has given the prime minister the opportunity to reaffirm his pro-choice commitments.

But abortion is not a top-of-mind concern for many voters, and the Liberals’ returning to the well yet again on this issue gives the impression that Trudeau is circling all the way back to when he was first selected as Liberal leader.

Liberal concerns about Trudeau’s leadership are buoyed further by polls which suggest that, under his leadership, the party is heading for defeat in the next election.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has opened up a small but stubborn lead over Trudeau in the polls. Poilievre himself is a source of concern for Liberals, as Trudeau is still finding his footing in grappling with the Conservative leader’s ferocious attacks on both him and his government.

All this means that Trudeau must at least be considering the possibility that he should step aside and clear the way for a new Liberal leader before the next election. The problem with this, however, is that it is far from clear that any of the frequently mentioned successors to Trudeau would succeed where the prime minister is failing.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is often named as Trudeau’s heir apparent. But she seems to be in no rush to take the top job.

Cabinet ministers Melanie Joly and Francois-Philippe Champagne have been mentioned as possible successors. Both could command a base of support in Quebec, but might have trouble generating support outside that province.

Mark Carney was reportedly interested in the job and even wrote a book to give his chances a boost. But has anyone heard from him lately?

An exciting leadership race might be just what the Liberal Party needs to generate public interest and support. But with no clear successor for the leadership, the Liberals may be stuck with Trudeau for the time being, for better or worse.

Royce Koop is a professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba and academic director of the Centre for Social Science Research and Policy.