The Decibel - Can Trudeau pull the Liberal Party back from the brink?

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

The Liberal Party is in a ‘dire state’. From questions over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s continued leadership to the collapse of the supply and confidence deal with the NDP, to their poor polling numbers compared to the Conservatives – the ruling party appears to be at the weakest in years. What, if anything, can they do to win back Canadian voters with a federal election on the horizon?The Globe’s political columnist John Ibbitson joins the podcast to talk about the inner turmoil of the party and whether Trudeau could step down.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

It's been a tough few months for the Liberal government. They've been trailing the Conservatives in the polls. In June, the party lost what used to be a comfortable Liberal seat in a by-election in Toronto. Last week, the NDP pulled out of the Supply and Confidence Agreement, meaning they won't guarantee support for the Liberals anymore. And the party has seen a number of departures. The Liberal caucus retreat just wrapped up in BC, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a steep uphill battle ahead of him. So today, I'm joined by The Globe's political columnist John Ibbotson. He'll tell us what

Trudeau is up against, what kind of shape the party is in, and if there's anything the Liberals can do to win back Canadian voters. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. John, always great to have you back on the podcast. Great to be here. So I would say usually we don't cover party caucus retreats when they happen, right? They're not usually that exciting. MPs are just kind of regrouping.

But we wanted to talk about the Liberals' retreat in BC right now. I guess just how significant is this current caucus retreat for the party? Well, it's significant for a couple of reasons. First of all, it may be the last. A federal election is expected in October of 2025. There could be an election earlier than that because the NDP under Jagmeet Singh have withdrawn their supply and confidence agreement from the Liberals. The Liberals are deeply unpopular, 20 points behind the Conservatives in popular support.

So the caucus retreat comes at a time when the party is, I suspect, a tad demoralized. And we're all kind of watching to see what, in fact, the liberal agenda is for the fall session that begins next week. And if we look at Trudeau specifically here, John, I guess, what is his goal at the retreat? Like, what is he trying to accomplish here? It depends on what's in his head. And of course, none of us can be sure what's in his head. If in his head, he is determined to go on to the next election, whenever it may be, hopefully for him in October of next year, then his goal is to solidify caucus support behind him. Ignore the polls, ignore the grumblings, ignore what people are telling you at

the barbecues and when you knock on their doors, ignore all of that. Just listen to me. And I'm telling you that we can beat Pierre Polyev and I'm the one who can beat him. Keep up the faith. Let's just keep working and power ahead to the next election. If, in fact, he's thinking about leaving, then I'm not sure what the goal is other than to take the temperature of the caucus as he prepares to leave. But I have seen no indications at all that Justin Trudeau plans to step down. He says he plans to take the party into the next election. And unless and until he says or shows us evidence otherwise, perhaps in a by-election next week that I know we'll be talking about, we have to take him at his word.

OK, so that's kind of Trudeau more specifically there. What if we look at the party broadly here, John? How would you characterize the state of the liberal party right now? Well, I think it's not good. Let's remember, Justin Trudeau saved the liberal party. When he took over as leader in 2013, the party was moribund. It had a terrible election. It was way behind the polls. It had no money. Many of the constituencies, the writing associations, were moribund. And he took that broken and dispirited party and took it to a majority government status. It's his party, his victory. That's also why it's his to decide what he's going to do. I think the Liberal Party today is in better shape than it was in 2013, but I don't think it's in great shape. And we have to remember, if these polling numbers hold, if the Liberals lose as many as half their seats, perhaps even more in places like the Greater Toronto area, Greater Vancouver area, then the party might not be that much healthier than it was when Justin Trudeau rode to his rescue more

than a decade ago. Okay, so I guess just coming back to this idea of characterizing the current state of the party then, John, like is this a unified liberal party? It's unified but dispirited. That is to say, in the past, the liberal parties had internal rebellions. John Kretschner working to undermine John Turner in the 1980s. Paul Martin working to. John Kretschner working to undermine John Turner in the 1980s. Paul Martin working to undermine John Kretschner in the 1990s. There is no rebellion against Justin Trudeau. There is no one waiting in the wings. There's no one fomenting dissent within the caucus and within the writing associations.

But nonetheless, you can't be as far behind in the polls as they are and not be very dispirited. There are, I'm told, quite a number of Liberal MPs, I'm not sure how many, who didn't even attend the caucus meeting in the nine-mole. And that's a very bad indicator. Of course, the summer is a time when most MPs, the idea is you go back to your constituency, you talk to the people that you represent. Do we know what MPs have been hearing from their constituents this summer? We know that people are very concerned about the impact of inflation. Even though inflation is moderating, we have had all of us who earn wages a serious blow to our standard of living. We know that interest rates are too high.

And if you're negotiating a mortgage or renegotiating a mortgage, you're hit by that huge increase in doors. I can't imagine they're not getting that message rather forcefully from people who are interacting with this government. And I guess what would that kind of message, what kind of effect would that have on MPs? Well, you can't be knocking on doors and having people tell you over and over again that things are really lousy and you're to blame and it picks up your spirits. So I think they're weathering a very difficult time. And remember, this was supposed to be the summer of the reset. The Liberals had a terrible by-election loss in June. Toronto St. Paul's, one of the safest ridings in the country, and the Conservatives snatched it away from them. So this was supposed to be the summer when Justin Trudeau listened to

Canadians and came back with a new plan, a new revived agenda, perhaps a cabinet shuffle, perhaps a, who knows, a leadership campaign, something to get the Liberals back in the game. I see nothing that has happened since the St. Paul's by-election to suggest that they're back in the game at all. So we've been talking kind of big picture here, John. I want to ask you about some specific things actually, though, now that we've seen and maybe what this might tell us. You actually wrote about how there are over 50 Liberal staffers that are refusing to volunteer for the Montreal by-election, which is coming up next week, and they're refusing to volunteer over the government's stance on the conflict in Gaza. So I guess I'm wondering, John, what does that tell you

about, I guess, the state of the Liberal Party? It's astonishing. I've never seen anything like it before. Just to provide a bit of context, political staffers are not public servants. They are paid by the federal government, but they work in ministers' offices. They are there to work for the minister, for the party, for the government. They were also expected, whenever there's a by-election or an election or anything like that, to take a leave of absence and go and work in the rioting. That's their job. That's what's expected of them. And more than 50 of them sent a letter to the liberal leader, not the prime minister, saying, we are very upset with your position in the war involving Israel and Hamas. We think you are far too supportive of Israel. We don't like what is

happening in Gaza. We don't think you are sufficiently supportive of the rights of Palestinians. And we are not going to work for you in the by-election of Salim Arvidan. They essentially went on strike. I've never seen anything like it. Ministerial staffers in open rebellion against the prime minister, against the leader of the party for which they work. I can't think of anything that would be a more damning indictment of morale within the government than the fact that the government's own ministerial staffers have gone on strike. So I guess what are these tensions and the fact that they've gotten to this level within the Liberal Party? What does this tell you about the state of the Liberal government? Well, it tells me the Liberal Party is in a dire state. If we sum up the fact that there are MPs

who didn't go to the caucus treat, if we sum up the fact that there are MPs who didn't go to the caucus tree, if we sum up the fact that there are 50 staffers who are not working in La Salle des Morts, not to mention the fact that the National Director of the Party, Mr. Broadhurst, quit and sent a letter saying, one year before the next election, I've suddenly decided that I need to spend more time with my family. That, again, is a terrible indictment coupled with the polling data that suggests the Liberal Party is not ready for this election. The Liberal Party is in deep, deep trouble. You mentioned Jeremy Brotters. Let me ask you directly about that because, yeah,

he was the national campaign director. He announced he's resigning last week. Is this a big deal, John? Well, it is a big deal. If you're the national director of the party, if you are expecting an election, perhaps in a matter of weeks or months, certainly within about a year, this is no time to decide to spend more time with the kids. If you were going to do that, you should have done that a couple of years ago so that your successor would have time to prepare the party for the next election. And it reinforces the notion that there is something listing in the ship of state, or at least the ship that

is the Liberal Party. Let me ask you about some cabinet ministers as well, because the former labor minister, Seamus O'Regan, he left cabinet this summer. He was a pretty high profile person in the government. And there's also speculation that transportation minister Pablo Rodriguez might leave as well. Are these significant? Well, I wouldn't go overboard on that. Before any federal election, people who are MPs, if you're government people in cabinet, think about it and go, do I want another four years of this? They might also say, do I want to go down to defeat in my riding? Somewhere between those two, it's not unusual for MPs and even cabinet ministers to say, no, I think I'm going to go find some work in the private sector or I'm going to go

spend more time with my family. And therefore, if you're in that headspace, you have an obligation to tell the prime minister well ahead that you're not going to be running in the next election. Please, it's time to put somebody else in cabinet in my stead. This isn't a case of cabinet members and MPs storming out for the exits, at least not yet. This right now is about what you would expect. One more specific thing I want to ask you about in this similar vein. This week, we heard that five of 38 Liberal ministers actually lost their chief of staff. What should we make of that, John?

That suggests perhaps that there is a bit of storming for the exits. That's a lot. But on the other hand, you would expect chiefs of staff to leave, directors of communications to leave, policy people to leave. And you would expect them to give that notice about a year out because they would need somebody to come and replace them and then get ready for the election that is to come. So it's significant, but I wouldn't want to exaggerate the significance. We'll be right back. So, John, as you say, not everything is a signal of a party in disarray. But I guess I'm wondering what you make of this decision we saw at the caucus retreat this week, Trudeau bringing in

Mark Carney to give advice around the economy. Carney is, of course, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, as well as the Bank of England. John, what are the Liberals trying to do here by bringing in Mark Carney? It's a very interesting decision because we do have a finance department and we do have a finance minister, Chrystia Freeland. So it's a bit surprising that we need somebody else brought in to advise the party on the state of the national finances and the economic plan going forward. So it could be a couple of things. We know that one of the reasons that the Liberals are so unpopular is that the Canadian public lacks confidence in their economic agenda at a time when economic issues are top of mind for most voters. So it could be the party saying, all right, we can't really have

Christia Freeland and the finance department change course because that would be admitting we were wrong all along. So we're going to get the former governor of the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, to head up a task force and make some recommendations that really look as though it would be moving the party more towards the centre and away from the well to the center left position that it holds right now. It could also be Justin Trudeau signaling that Mark Carney is his chosen successor.

I don't know that. But if he did want to signal that, this would be a very good way to do it. Yeah, because there have been rumors that Trudeau is trying to bring him into the party, right? So this maybe could be a signal of that, you know, that kind of movement then. And it could be a signal that he's ready to join. I mean, he is now heading up a task force for the party on what its economic platform should be, I assume, in the next election. You wouldn't be doing that unless you were saying, I am four square with the liberal party now. I am a liberal. I am ready to serve. And that's what Mark Carney is doing. doing. And Carney himself, of course, has not really addressed questions of whether he would

consider running for the leadership, at least at this point. So we kind of have to wait and see, I guess. But it works, though, doesn't it? You head up the task force. You come up with the recommendations. Maybe the prime minister leaves before the next election. Maybe he stays on. Either way, you are very well situated to run for leadership of the party and you've already got your fiscal platform ready to go. You wrote it up for the task force. So how much of a difference do you think this could make, John, in how Canadians feel about the Liberals bringing in Mark Carney, this new economic task force? Yeah. How could this change things? Well, I've been around a bit and I have never seen a transformative task force.

People hated the liberal government. They couldn't stand what was happening to their mortgages. Interest rates are crazy. Their kids can't find a house. Oh, but there's a task force. Now I'm prepared to reconsider. How many people do you think are prepared to do that? Interesting point.

Yeah. Yeah. Let me bring it back to Trudeau, John, because we've been talking about all these things that have been happening within the party. But I guess Trudeau himself, when he's asked about the state of the party, the state of the liberals, what do you make of how Trudeau responds to those kinds of questions? Well, again, he is thus far emphatic that he continues to lead the Liberal Party and that he will lead it into the next election and that he believes that he will win. Again, I don't know what's going on inside Justin Trudeau's head.

No one knows what's going on inside Justin Tr 2015, when it was clear that it was time for Stephen Harper to step down and let someone else lead the Conservative Party. The polling numbers were bad, not nearly as bad as they are for the Liberals right now, but they weren't great. You know, Stephen Harper had been prime minister for almost a decade, and maybe it was time for him to let somebody else lead the party into the 2015 election. Instead, he decided to stay. Why? Well, it looked as though he decided to stay because he believed that if Justin Trudeau won the election, he would run the country into the ground and only Stephen Harper could stop Justin Trudeau. It may well be that Justin Trudeau believes that if Pierre Polyev wins the next

election, he will run the country into the ground and that only Justin Trudeau can stop Pierre Polyev. I'm not saying that's the case, but I have a hunch. This is an interesting point about this chatter of, you know, Trudeau stepping down or staying on as leader. A couple of liberal MPs actually, including one this week, have openly said that the party won't win the next election with Trudeau leading the liberals. Is this actually an option at this point, John? Could they bring in a new liberal leader if Trudeau decides to step down? It's getting harder every day to see how Justin Trudeau could step down. Let's assume the Salimah Verdun by-election next week is a disaster for the liberals.

And now the calls for the liberal leader to step down are growing louder. Let's say Justin Trudeau takes a walk in the auto, leaves, and decides at the end of September, early October, that he's going to step down as leader. Well, the NDP supply and confidence agreement no longer exists. So we would have a leadership campaign in which the liberals would have to trust the NDP and the bloc to do the right thing, as it were, and not bring down the government on a motion of non-confidence, because then you would have an election in which there was no liberal leader. Let's say they decide that, you know, they give assurances that get yourself a leader, we'll hold off until the leader's in place. And let's make it a fast leadership campaign. Let's

make it November, December, January, February. End of February, we have a leader. So the House is back. We have a new liberal leader. We have a new prime minister, whoever it is. And we have a leader. So the House is back. We have a new Liberal leader. We have a new Prime Minister, whoever it is. And we have an October election slated. So that leader has a matter of weeks to put together a new cabinet and to put together a budget that will show the Liberal government is prepared to take a new direction under that leader. And then after you have that budget, if it survives, and it probably won't, you are then going into an election or at least the preparation for an election. Those timelines are very, very tight. And they get tighter every single day that Justin Trudeau

decides to stay. It's interesting, though. So you're tying this the kind of the dissolution of the supply and confidence agreement, though, is actually putting the liberals in a tight position here where maybe they don't have as many options as they did if they knew they had NDP support. Absolutely. The end of the supply and confidence agreement means the liberals can no longer count on the fact that the NDP will support them. It means they could lose a vote of confidence at any moment. And that becomes fraught if you're holding a liberal leadership race at the time you lose that vote of confidence. Yeah. This whole issue of leadership, I think a lot of people look to the situation in the States and think about some of the similarities here, right? Where we had U.S. President Joe Biden

step down because of his unpopularity. He had a pretty obvious replacement there, right? His Vice President Harris. We don't have an obvious replacement here, right? There are some names that have been bandied around like Mark Carney or Min ministers Jolie or Champagne. But I guess how similar are these situations, John? Like what happened with the leadership in the States versus, I guess, what could happen here? I don't think they're similar at all. The idea that Joe Biden was clearly past his prime and that it was time for him to step down. It was so strong after that first debate. Something had to be done. The party was in a state of absolute crisis.

Here, the problems with the Liberal Party are chronic. They're not critical. Secondly, when Joe Biden stepped down, he clearly indicated that he wanted Kamala Harris as his successor. Elite opinion rallied around that choice instantly. It was literally a matter of a few days before the Democrats had decided, yes, indeed, Kamala Harris will be our nominee.

There will be no leadership race. That wouldn't happen in this case. And then finally, I don't think there's a lot of hope and joy reservoir available for the Liberal Party, whoever is leading it. I think one of the reasons that Jagmeet Singh ended the supply and competence agreement is that he's hoping to channel the hope and joy notion. He's the one who's going to say the Liberal Party is exhausted. It can't possibly

defeat Pierre Polyev. I am the only one who can bring that spring in my step, that hope for the future, that time for a change mantra that the Democrats are serving in the United States. If you want Kamala Harris, vote for Jagmeet Singh. I think they could be trying that. I don't know if it'll succeed, but I don't think the liberals have that as an available option. In the US, it was quite public, right?

A lot of Democrats were very loudly speaking out against Biden at a certain point. We're not seeing that here, at least at the moment, but is that likely to change? I don't think we are ever going to see the kind of open revolt that you saw with the Democratic Party. Justin Trudeau owns this party. He rescued it. Every MP in caucus owes their position to Justin Trudeau and what he did for the party a decade ago. And that kind of stuff resonates, that kind of stuff lasts. It may be a slow drip

of dissent, but there's not going to be he must go, he must go kind of thing that we saw after the disastrous debate for Joe Biden. Just before I let you go here, John, we've talked about a lot of issues that the Liberal Party is facing, but is there anything the party could do to improve its standing in the minds of Canadians? If I knew what it is the Liberal Party can do to change its standing in the minds of Canadians, the Liberal Party would know what it must do to change its standing in the minds of Canadians. They're smarter than me.

So the fact that they have come up with nothing suggests at the moment, at least, there's nothing available on offer. At the moment, it seems that the electorate has crossed its arms. It's just sitting there going, all right, we're done. We want a change of government. This is a change election. Please go to the governor general tomorrow and dissolve the parliament and have an election.

If you won't do it tomorrow, please do it next week. If you won't do it next week, do it the week after that. If you want to wait all the way until October 2025, go ahead and wait. But the answer is going to be the same no matter what you do. John, always interesting to talk to you. Thank you so much for being here. It was great. Thanks. That's it for today. Today's episode was edited and mixed by Ali Graham. Our producers are Madeline White, Rachel Levy-McLaughlin, Michal Stein, and Ali Graham. Our producers are Madeline White, Rachel Levy-McLaughlin, Michal Stein,

and Ali Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.