Too late to change Liberals’ fate
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/01/2025 (274 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has finally announced his intention to step down as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, after a new party leader is chosen. Many Canadians are thankful he has finally done so, but others must wonder what took him so long to make the decision.
After all, Trudeau’s Liberals have been far behind Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives in the polls for more than a year, and his job approval and “best prime minister” poll numbers have been just as bad for just as long.
During that time, columnists and editorial writers across the country argued that his resignation at that time — a year or even several months ago — would give the Liberal Party sufficient time to choose a new leader, chart a new path for the country, and fight the Tories on more equal terms in the next election.
Trudeau ignored all of that good advice, however, and the Liberals’ polling numbers continued to plunge, as has the time remaining before the next election.
It appears that he only began to take the matter seriously in the past three weeks, after the majority of MPs in his party’s Atlantic, Quebec and Ontario caucuses, comprising the majority of all Liberal MPs, called for him to immediately step down.
Liberal MPs are no doubt shaken by two recent polls that indicate they now trail the Conservatives by a greater margin than at any time in the past century, if ever.
In a poll conducted last week, the Angus Reid Institute found that 45 per cent of voters would cast ballots for Conservative candidates. The NDP ranked second at 21 per cent, while the Liberals were even further behind, at just 16 per cent.
The same poll found that almost one-half of respondents feel Trudeau should step down, but an even larger percentage of Liberal supporters — 60 per cent — said he should go.
The Reid numbers are largely echoed by the findings of a Nanos Research poll, which found that the Tories were at 47 per cent, with the Liberals trailing at 21 per cent and the NDP at 17 per cent. The poll also revealed that 40 per cent of respondents preferred Poilievre as prime minister, while just 17.4 per cent preferred Trudeau as PM.
All those numbers mean that the Conservatives would win a record majority of seats in the House of Commons if an election was held any time soon, while the Liberals could be reduced to as few as a handful of seats — the party’s worst electoral outcome ever.
With the momentum flowing against them, it is easy to understand why so many Liberal MPs have finally summoned the courage to tell their boss to walk the plank, but they are too late. They have waited far too long and that has very likely doomed their re-election hopes, even under a new leader.
The Liberals are in no position to conduct a viable national election campaign anytime soon. They don’t have enough time left in their mandate to conduct a genuine leadership contest, choose a new leader and sell a new platform and narrative that is capable of reversing the Tories’ momentum.
Beyond that, the Liberals lack sufficient election infrastructure throughout a large chunk of the country, especially in rural Canada, and there are now only a handful of truly “safe” Liberal seats in the nation.
In almost every unheld riding, and even many held ridings, Liberal riding associations either barely exist or only exist on paper. They have neither the candidates, the money nor the vast number of volunteers required in order to credibly compete for wins in the majority of ridings across the nation.
The Conservatives, on the other hand, are swimming in cash at both the national and riding levels, including here in Manitoba.
Combine the Tories’ poll numbers with their money advantage and their army of enthusiastic volunteers and it is easy to see the electoral tsunami on the horizon. Trudeau’s slow-motion departure at this too-late point doesn’t alter that likelihood.
His refusal to step down months ago, when there was still an opportunity to reverse the tide, created this disaster-in-the-making. Now, with his eventual departure, somebody else will be left to clean up the mess.
Deveryn Ross is a political commentator living in Brandon.
deverynrossletters@gmail.com | X: @deverynross