REGINA - This whole messy, chaotic departure announcement of Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister this week — it figures, eh?
Really, folks, what did you expect? Trudeau has been making a mess of Canada for so long, what with the Carbon Tax and runaway inflation and skyrocketing deficits and all that, as well as his handling of cabinet ministers from Jody Wilson-Raybould all the way to Chrystia Freeland.
So it stands to reason that Trudeau would make a hash of his own departure, waiting too long to throw in the towel. He’s like that old boxer who doesn’t know when to quit the ring — like Mike Tyson up against Jake Paul.
The timing of this resignation, and more particularly this prorogation of Parliament until his final departure — right as a full-blown trade war with the United States is about to erupt — couldn't have been worse.
And yet it’s not just Trudeau who owns this mess. It’s also the entire Liberal party, with their internecine feuding that prompted his departure announcement in the first place.
In a lot of ways this reminds me of Jean Chretien getting stabbed in the back by Paul Martin back in the day — but in this case there’s no clear villain. Well, you might say Freeland, but this does not look to me like a fight between “Freeland” supporters and “Trudeau” supporters.
This instead looks to me like a case of terrified Liberal MPs who are fearful of losing their jobs in the impending blowout of an election that is coming. They think changing out leaders and bringing in someone like Freeland or Mark Carney or somebody else will fool the public into thinking the Liberals have changed and that that will help them save their jobs.
It might help the poll numbers short-term, but I doubt it will help in the election to follow. History bears that out.
Back in 1984, when Pierre Trudeau took his famous “walk in the snow” in that Ottawa snowstorm the night before he resigned, the Liberals thought they could solve all their problems by bringing in the dashing former finance minister John Turner as leader and Prime Minister. Initially, the Liberals did receive a bump in the polls as everyone in Canada forgot why they were mad at them.
There was just one problem: the voters got reminded. On his way out the door, Trudeau asked Turner to make a number of patronage appointments on his behalf, and that’s exactly what Turner did. It reeked of Liberal arrogance from over two decades of (almost) continuous power, and the PC leader Brian Mulroney seized on it during the debate by lambasting Turner: “you had an option, sir.”
The Liberals suffered the worst defeat in their history to that point, down to 40 seats.
A change in leaders also didn’t help the Progressive Conservatives in 1993 to replace the wildly unpopular Mulroney. The imposition of the GST as well as failed constitutional accords and referendums took a major toll on the PCs.
Still, the PCs did briefly receive a bump in the polls after Kim Campbell won the leadership, giving them hope going into the election. The problem is that Canadians were again reminded quickly during the campaign that this was the same party that brought in the GST and made a hash of the constitutional accords. Defections to the Bloc Quebecois and Reform Party took a massive toll, and the PC campaign was as gaffe-ridden as it got, with Campbell getting roasted for saying a campaign wasn’t a time to discuss the serious issues.
The PCs went down to two seats in Parliament in the worst defeat a government ever suffered in Canadian history.
In both cases, the government party had been wildly unpopular in the polls for literally years prior to the leadership change. New leaders resulted in a momentary blip, but the underlying problems remained for the party in power. Sometimes when a “time for a change” mood takes root, it is so strong that it can’t be stopped.
Fast forward to today. Liberal MPs feel that the answer to all of their problems is simply to put in a new leader to sell their message. But the Liberals have been in the polling doldrums for years now.
The problem for the Liberals is that Canadians are fed up with the inflation and housing unaffordability, and with the damage done to the economy due to policies attacking Canadian industries such as oil and gas. People are sick of a low dollar and high taxes, and alarmed at the tent encampments, plus rampant drug addiction issues across the country. And you have delays and long lineups for health care all over Canada. Also, you have people who have long memories about the COVID era and how the Trudeau Liberals froze bank accounts and stifled dissent.
I don't see how a new Liberal leader turns that around without making wholesale reversals on all kinds of policies, least of all the carbon tax. And even if they were to change course on that, it would be a big humiliation, an admission of failure. Pierre Poilievre would have a field day.
Beyond that, Trudeau just handed the new Liberal leader a ticking time bomb with the prorogation that just happened. Sending all the MPs home for two months, and thereby preventing any non-confidence votes that could potentially take down the government, is a bad look for the Liberal Party.
This prorogation really looks to me like the 2025 version of Turner’s 1984 patronage appointments. Voters will be out for blood.
I don’t really see any of these potential Liberal leadership hopefuls as a saviour in the waiting, especially the ones who served any time in cabinet. Yes, Freeland is on the outs with Trudeau now, making her look like a hero to some people. But she spent the whole rest of her time in government supporting Trudeau Liberal policies.
Last year she was the architect of hiking the Capital Gains Tax to 66.7 per cent for above $250,000, outraging countless property owners. People forget that this move by Freeland single-handed contributed to the Liberals’ current death-spiral poll numbers.
As for Carney, who spent much of his time previously in Britain, he really does come across like a confirmed member of the globalist establishment elite. You know, the ones who want to keep on fighting climate change with your tax dollars that you can’t afford.
It does not help matters for the Liberals that he is now being referred to as “Carbon Tax Carney”, going into an election where the carbon tax is wildly unpopular. And I highly doubt he will reverse course on that whatsoever. Carney looks to me like the second coming of Michael Ignatieff, another guy who was out of the country for a long time before coming back, and we know how that turned out for the Liberals. In 2011, Ignatieff did even worse than John Turner ever did.
Then you have other potential pretenders like former BC premier Christy Clark, who brought in a carbon tax when she was in power. How is she going to defend that in 2025?
You know what? This is going to sound really ridiculous, but maybe the best shot the Liberals had was to simply stick with the guy they had - Justin Trudeau.
It's not like the crop of potential replacements is really any better. Yes, people are fed up with Trudeau's policies and virtue-signalling, and are telling him off to his face in public. It would be a stretch to return to the days when Trudeau still had any rock-star lustre to him, but at least he’d stand up for his convictions on the stump. At least he’d go down fighting. That’s more than you can say about these current jokers in the Liberal Party who are bailing out.
The one thing Trudeau might have been counting on, and likely a major reason why he delayed his inevitable decision to leave as long as he did, was because he was chomping at the bit to go after Donald Trump after his election win.
Seriously, I think Trudeau was looking to try and portray himself as “Captain Canada” and argue that you needed to vote Liberal again in order to stand up to the dangerous Trump.
At least, I think that’s what the plan was, until Trump started in with his demeaning “51st State” and “Governor Trudeau” comments. Which simply reminded people of how weak Trudeau looked these days on the world stage.
When you think of it, if sticking with Trudeau really is the best hope the Liberals have, then the Liberals’ goose really is cooked.
