Like many before him, unpopular PM probably plans to overstay his worn-out welcome

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This article was published 27/11/2023 (748 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Tru-deau (noun): Canadian shorthand for politically unpopular; leader who is generally culpable for everything wrong with Canada; slang for entitled and aloof.

One of the realities of being a political columnist is that once people I meet find out what I do, they offer me unprompted, unsolicited political opinions. And right now, those opinions usually focus on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Like the other day, when a man offered me a rapid-fire assessment of everything wrong with the country. Health care is a shambles, gas prices are too high, inflation is a total bummer and it looks like COVID-19 is coming back with a vengeance.

And then, he offered this short and to-the-point assessment of the man he felt was responsible for all those problems.

“F—-ing Trudeau.”

Why would this man identify Trudeau as the cause of everything he thinks is wrong with Canada? It’s just one sign among many that the prime minister has likely reached his political best-before date. Further, there is very likely nothing he and the Liberals can do to extend his shelf life beyond the next election, which must be held by October 2025.

Does that mean Trudeau will step down? Political history suggests that is unlikely.

In politics at both the provincial (former NDP premier Greg Selinger comes to mind) and federal (former Tory prime minister Stephen Harper) levels, we’ve seen examples of politicians who become unpopular, cling to leadership in a desperate bid to stay in the game and suffer tremendous defeats at the hands of voters who simply decided to move on.

There is no guarantee the Liberals will lose the next election, although current poll results are hardly encouraging for the current governing party.

Trudeau could not have been through his first cup of coffee on Monday morning before he was bombarded with new poll results that show his Liberal party leaking support across the country, including in key ridings that helped him snatch a second minority government from the gaping jaws of an advancing Conservative party.

The newest poll, conducted by Innovative Research, concludes that 34 key ridings used by the Liberals to stay in power are all leaning heavily towards the Tories. That is a significant observation given that the Liberals have, for two consecutive elections, won more seats with fewer votes than the Conservatives.

In other words, the poll suggests the anomalous math employed by Trudeau to stay in power could be coming to an end.

This poll comes hot on the heels of other survey results. A Leger poll released earlier this month found that two-thirds of Canadians want Trudeau to step down, with 20 per cent claiming they are simply tired of having him lead the country.

These are hardly definitive results that, on their own, predict the outcome of the next election. Liberals will counter that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is only slightly more popular — which is to say slightly less unpopular — than Trudeau. For example, half of the respondents in a July Nanos poll wanted both Trudeau and Poilievre to step down before the next election.

But even in this survey, which the Liberals could use as justification for keeping the current leader in place, only 42 per cent of self-identified Liberal voters want Trudeau to stay. Nearly three-quarters of Tory voters supported Poilievre.

And therein lies the predicament facing Trudeau.

No matter how he tries to slice and dice the day-to-day political debate, he is so unpopular he has become the fall guy for all that is wrong in the country.

Trudeau is not an innocent bystander to this erosion of support. His government has made plenty of mistakes. And through a combination of his own profound foibles and an increasingly hyper-partisan electorate, he has become a drag on his party, an easy target to attach all grievances.

The so-called “affordability crisis” is a good case in point.

Poilievre’s Conservatives have arguably used this issue more than any other to eat away at Liberal support. But the federal government really has very little control over inflation, and interest rates are set independently by the Bank of Canada. And if we’re keeping count, the Trudeau government has tried to ease the impact of inflation with a $12-billion affordability program that has increased Old Age Security payments and doubled GST credits for the most vulnerable Canadians.

Doesn’t matter. Affordability is one of the key reasons why Canadians — at least those being surveyed by pollsters — want Trudeau gone.

Can the prime minister read the writing on the wall? With two years to go before the next election, this is really the window for a resignation and a leadership campaign.

There is no sign that Trudeau is seriously considering stepping aside. And that means, for better or worse, he will lead his party into the next election. As the Liberals sink lower in the polls, the prime minister’s decision to remain at the helm will start to impact support within the party.

Which is to say, more Liberals will begin to hear the word “Trudeau” as shorthand for all that is wrong in the country.

dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com