The Decibel - What Trudeau’s summer shakeup says about the Liberals’ health

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

On Wednesday, the Trudeau government unveiled a major cabinet shakeup. The reset comes at a time when the Liberals are facing criticisms over poor communication, Chinese interference in Canadian elections and the handling of a housing affordability crisis facing many Canadians.Ottawa reporter Shannon Proudfoot is on the show to explain what the Liberal government is trying to accomplish with these moves and whether it will have an effect on their recent sagging poll numbers.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [e-mail]

With the Governor-General's approval, we will now proceed with the swearing-in of members of the 29th Canadian Ministry. And with that, the Trudeau government introduced a new cabinet. It came with a lot of changes, involving some key ministers. Only 8 out of 38 cabinet members are keeping their current posts. This shuffle comes at an interesting time, because the Trudeau government has been grappling with a lot of issues in recent months. Foreign interference and the scandal over Paul Bernardo, just to name two. Today, Ottawa reporter Shannon Proudfoot is on the show,

to help us understand what this means for the direction of the Liberal government. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Shannon, thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having me. So Shannon, obviously you're watching this stuff closely. I wonder, what does this shuffle, what does it tell us about the moment that the Trudeau government is in right now? Well, I think what's interesting is the way the move was telegraphed, the way it was sort of set up with leaks beforehand, which, you know, you can sort of make guesses about who they are. I kept likening it to like, if you get asked in a job interview,

what's your greatest fault? And your answer is, I'm just a perfectionist. I just try too hard to do a good job. Because the kind of line that all the media in Ottawa were being given about this shuffle was that things are going really well. The Liberal government is doing big things that they are getting things done and everything is going sort of tickety-boo, but they just need stronger communicators to tell everyone how wonderful they are. Now, that is both true and untrue. It's true that this government has had really, really big communication problems and they are not very effectively making their case, showing their work, talking about what they're doing. It is also true that that is far from their only problem, or maybe their biggest problem. But I think the real point here is to look like a reset, which is not, I don't mean to suggest that I'm saying this is not a

significant reset and kind of shuffling of people at the table. I think it very clearly is. But I think the point is also to look like it is. We're about halfway through, we're two years into a minority government with two years left on this arrangement with the NDP that should in theory get us to 2025 before the next election. And the last kind of, you know, semester, if you will, of this parliament was really, really rough on the government. So I think the point is for this to look like kind of a rebrand, a shakeup, but without the government ever, ever admitting that things are going badly. And that's why they're doing it, because of course, they would not admit such a thing. Yeah, that's that's an interesting point to have it be a little bit about optics,

it sounds like at this stage as well. I wonder, does the shuffle reveal anything about about what issues or what things are important to the government right now? Yeah, absolutely. And so this was one of those things that was, again, sort of telegraphed in advance, but I think the proof is in the pudding. They are really trying to foreground the economy, cost of living, things like cost of housing. And I think there are three really, really strong reasons why that's where they feel like they need to kind of go in strong. One is because it's a top of mind concern for everyone. You know, inflation continues to kind of strangle people. The cost of housing is just bonkers in even small cities in Canada now. So it's something where they need to be responsive to public anxiety and even anger in a lot of

cases. It's also that, you know, we're assuming the next election is going to be sort of a battle between the liberals and the conservatives. Conservatives traditionally are considered stronger on the economy. You know, you see it perennially in polls. If you ask kind of who has the heart and who's the better economic manager, they tend to answer liberals for the first one and conservatives for the second. So they're sort of the liberal government is sort of fighting an uphill battle in terms of being perceived as being competent on the economy. And then the third reason is that this particular version of the Conservative Party under leader Pierre Palliev is absolutely hammering them on the economy and on affordability. And it's probably sort of his strongest arguments, his strongest suit as a politician, and it really matches where people

are. So this shuffle was really meant to either actually move or to look like they have moved their strongest performers into economic portfolios. You mentioned that it's been kind of a rough last semester for this government. And one of the big issues, of course, is Chinese interference in Canadian elections. This has been an issue for the last few months, especially. Does this shuffle tell us anything about how this government is handling the fallout from that? It's interesting. I don't know. I mean, there is a very direct result in that Marco Mendicino no longer has a job in cabinet. He was

public safety minister who was sort of very directly implicated in some of those issues, and then in subsequent issues that we're going to talk about a little bit later. So there's a bit of a trailer on the trials and tribulations of Marco Mendicino. So, you know, someone has lost their job as a result of poor handling of certain issues. But it doesn't actually look to me like they are directly addressing that so much. Their reaction to the idea of foreign interference was a lot of foot dragging, sort of waiting for the issue to go away, pretending it wasn't that big a deal, or it was something that everyone knew all along. It was sort of a puzzlingly kind of, I would argue, slow and ineffective response. I think the issues that have plagued the government are more kind of big picture lingering ones about, you know, a sense of entitlement, a sense of kind

of like poor communication within. A lot of the biggest issues we saw them dealing with had to do with, oh my goodness, why do senior staffers not think that important things are important to tell their bosses, the ministers? So I think this is more a general global shakeup than it is meant to address the specifics of what made the last few months rough for them. But there's no doubt that it is like a roundabout response to the last few rough months. So let's get into some of the highlights of this shuffle. What I found interesting here is some of the moves that actually didn't happen. So Shannon, who still has the same job? Yeah, so you're right. Some of the significant things is what didn't change. So Chrystia Freeland, the finance minister and deputy prime minister, still in her job.

Melanie Jolie, the foreign minister, still in hers. Francois-Philippe Champagne, industry minister, still has his job. And those are sort of seen as kind of the inner circle of the inner circle, very close to the prime minister and the PMO. Most of them discussed as possible leadership successors, and they are still in their jobs. Two other significant kind of holding pattern jobs are Stephen Gilbeau, Environment Minister, and Jonathan Wilkinson, Natural Resources Minister. His title changed very slightly, but his portfolio is the same. And those ones are interesting because the Western premiers sort of like fly into a rage at the sight of their faces or names because of the kind of divisiveness

of the idea of environmental policy and resource policy out in Western Canada. And so it is interesting that the prime minister doubled down on keeping those two in the jobs that are most relevant to those file areas. So he's saying, you know what, Danielle Smith, you might not like them. They might make you really, really angry, but they are staying. This is what we're doing. So those were sort of the significant jobs that did not change on a very short list of jobs that did not change because almost everyone else switched seats or moved out. Yeah. I wonder, though, what does this tell us that this kind of core group of people close to the PMO didn't change their jobs and also that environment and resources didn't change?

Like, what is the signal? Well, it tells us that the close people are still the close people, that the ones the prime minister counts on and sees as sort of, you know, I don't really want to put it in childish terms like favorites, but essentially that's what it is. The people he relies on, the closest advisors, the ones that he thinks are doing a very good job in their portfolios, that has not changed. So it's a sign of continuation and consistency and sort of a continued relying on those people and also the emphasis on those roles. I mean, perhaps if he

would have changed the environment minister to someone who is seen as less of a true believer, you know, Stephen Gilbo two decades ago was getting arrested on behalf of Greenpeace. He is a person who walks the walk, talks the talk, and has for a very long time. If they had, you know, in a parallel universe, made the change of the environment minister to someone who would be seen as a bit softer on issues of climate change or more industry friendly, that would have been a signal. And the fact that they did not is a signal in the opposite direction that this is what we're doing. We're doubling down on the idea of climate change as one of our kind of signature, perhaps legacy policies. I don't know if they're looking at it in that way quite yet. But certainly, the chattering classes kind of are starting to

think about this government getting along in the tooth and what is it that they're going to leave behind them. We'll be back in a minute. All right. And I also want to talk about demotions here. And briefly before Shannon, you mentioned Marco Mendicino, because this was a big change. He went from public safety to nothing. He's out of cabinet right now. So he's gone from a big main role in this government to the back bench. And I know, of course, I can't help but thinking about his handling of the Paul Bernardo transfer. That was big news that got a lot of attention recently. Is Mendicino being punished for his handling of that? Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's any way to see his demotion out of cabinet other than being a response to poor performance.

There are a couple of other more complicated examples we can talk about next that I don't think are directly that. But yeah, the Paul Bernardo case was one of those things that just touched a raw nerve with the public. It's still kind of unclear what happened, but it became clear that Mendicino's senior staff knew about his transfer to medium security and didn't let the minister know. And meanwhile, you had the minister sort of going out there very publicly pounding his desk and saying, this is appalling. But it's not just that. He also arguably bungled the government's handling of the firearms legislation, and they had to do a bunch of kind of embarrassing walkbacks. And there was sort of some tone deafness there. He was directly implicated and integrally involved in the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the handling of the convoy

protest here in Ottawa. That was a case where it wasn't necessarily so clear that he had done something wrong, but he was just in the mix. And I think it's kind of just a case of an accumulation of drip, drip, drips of problems. There is another interesting, and I think to a lot of people, quite surprising demotion in that David Lamedi, who was the justice minister and the attorney general, and had been for a number of years, is no longer in cabinet. Now, I think most people's supposition there is that that was more just kind of pragmatic, slightly greasy politics, in that he comes from Montreal in a seat that is quite a safe liberal seat, and that somebody else needed to be plugged into cabinet in seats that

might be a little harder for the party to win next time around, because there are not sort of obvious sins you can point to on the part of former Minister Lemedy. You know, there was some criticism there, there's been a lot of talk about the slowness of appointing federal judges and lots of openings and positions not filled and lots of talk about bail reform. But but neither of those kind of slowed down processes, I think, was substantial or obviously his fault enough to explain why he is no longer in cabinet. So it could be that that was just, you know, almost literally being the wrong place at the wrong time. So essentially, they've opened up that position for someone else. And there's a new person to cabinet then that is taking on the justice portfolio. Yeah. So Arif Farhani, who is a lawyer, but with a really strong human rights background,

takes on the role after Lemedy, Toronto area MP, I believe Parkdale High Park is his writing, and it's much more one of those writings that's more a roll of a dice. So it could be, and they will, of course, never say this, if you ask the Prime Minister why, that that is just, there's a lot of sort of math that goes into cabinets, the making of cabinets, you know, there's the famous gender balance, there is geographical balance, there is, you know, urban, suburban, rural. The Liberals don't have a lot of rural MPs. There is different regional representation. And it could be that just if you picture the spreadsheet of cabinet, that David Lamedi was just on the unlucky end of that and Arif Varani was considered kind of, you know, a fresh face, someone with a legal background, but a better fit.

And Shannon, you mentioned earlier about communication, right, about how this was an issue for the government. Sometimes lack of communication was a problem. What role has communication played here in the cabinet shuffle and who moved where? I think it played a big role in the big promotions we saw. So the big either lateral moves or people being moved into what are perceived as more high profile portfolios. So one of the ones I would highlight as being particularly interesting is Sean Fraser. So he was Minister of Immigration and Citizenship. And he now goes to sort of a newly reconstituted portfolio called Housing and Infrastructure. So they've kind of taken housing off someone else's portfolio, stuck it together with infrastructure.

And the idea would be minister of building things. Sean Fraser, I think, would be widely regarded as one of the strongest performers in cabinet. Really smart, really good communicator, straight shooter. And this, to me, is one of the most obvious moves meant to shore up this government's economic bona fides, both to be able to tell the story of what they are doing better to a country where a lot of people are worried and stressed and angry, to be able to push back against Mr. Polyev and the conservatives' attacks on this front. So that seems like a pretty obvious promotion to put one of their strong performers in a really important spot. Another

one along those lines is Dominic LeBlanc. So he retains his old portfolio, which was intergovernmental affairs, but adds public safety, which, as we talked about, has been a real problem point for the government the last six months or so. So he takes that over from Marco Mendicino. And Dominic LeBlanc is like literally a lifelong friend of the prime minister, has great, he just commands a lot of reliance from the prime minister. He is sort of the guy you bring in for cleanup in aisle three. So that is seen as his role here to take on a thorny portfolio in addition to one he held before and kind of make it work better. Okay, Shannon, let's turn to how this is all going to play out with the opposition parties. I want to start with the conservatives and leader Pierre Polyev.

He was previously calling for Marco Mendicino to resign. And now we see he does not have a cabinet position anymore. Are some parts of the shuffle maybe to placate what the opposition wants at all? I would argue not simply because there's just no way on earth that Pierre Polyev is going to go. Good job, Justin. You did well. Let's move on. Like, that's just not going to happen. But like, you're right, I'm being a bit glib, although not really, because that's also accurate. In the sense that I think they're trying more globally to respond to their weaknesses and to the strongest case you could make against them. I don't see a world in which Polyev has anything good to say about this. I think what they're trying to do more is set up more of a fair fight. I mean, Polyev, you can argue different ways about how effective he is as a communicator. He is certainly, he's spicy. He's got the art of the, you know, the kind of branded statement down. He's been a political animal for two decades and,

you know, cut his teeth as a wee baby, you know, literally still chubby cheeked MP being an attack dog. Now that he is the leader of his majesty's loyal opposition, I would argue he maybe needs to cool it and look a bit more statesmanlike. But nonetheless, he is extremely good and really, really likes the fisticuff side of politics. And so I think what the liberals are trying to do in this case is not get beaten up in the ring quite so much and have people who can push back and who can effectively kind of fight Polyev and his sort of surrogates, the other strong communicators in the Conservative Party on their own terms. And I want to ask you about the NDP as well,

and leader Jagmeet Singh, how have they responded to all of this? Yeah, so they're in some ways, the same thing that responds to the Conservatives responds to the NDP, which is a focus on cost of living, which has also been something Mr. Singh has really been focusing on. So the NDP does have this supply and confidence agreement with the Liberals, where they've agreed to basically prop up this minority government until 2025, provided they get some things they want, which have sort of been in progress. Things like dental care, pharma care, less further along. But affordability is a top of mind issue for them, too. So to the extent that the liberals are trying to address that by putting stronger performers in economic portfolios, it's it's still it's sort of scratching the same sort of itch for both opposition parties.

OK, Shannon, let's just at the end here talk about the strategy for the liberals going forward, because as this cabinet shuffle announcement was was was coming out, a poll from Abacus Data found that the conservatives are 10 points ahead of the liberals in the polls. That is if a hypothetical election were called tomorrow. But Shannon, will this shake up help those numbers for the liberals? Yeah, so it's interesting. I think what the liberal government's trying to do here is pull a bit of a magic trick in a sort of very simplified way. If you are an incumbent party, you are fighting an uphill battle because everything bad that's happened or that's going on, you wear in some way or your opponents will try to make you wear it. So for instance, if the economy is going poorly, it's your fault. Even if things are going well, you don't have the ability to offer something new. I'm not saying it's necessarily inherently easier to

be sort of the challenger party, but you certainly can say, here are X, Y, and Z things that are not going well, we will do things differently. So I feel like what the liberals are trying to do here is kind of like be an incumbent party, but put a new face on themselves and also say that they are offering something new. Because everyone knows they've won three elections in a row now by decreasing minorities. It is historically almost an impossibility for a party to win four elections in a row in Canada. So the sort of safe money would be on the next election being a change election where the electorate turns toward the Conservative Party. And so I think what the Liberals are trying to do is make themselves look like a new old government, because we have seen

consistently for months and months, although that 10 point lead is probably about the widest it's been, that the liberals are trailing the conservatives to the extent that, you know, you can rely on horse race polling in between elections because it tends to be where people sort of park their protest feelings. But regardless, it is useful for telling us that there's a significant portion of the Canadian population that's pretty tired of this prime minister in this government. And just on the idea of a potential election, how soon could that be? Like, are we thinking this fall, next spring? What's possible? So now that we've settled the cabinet speculation, that is going to be the new favorite parlor game in Ottawa. Maybe we can all like take a break and go to a few summer barbecues first before

we settle into that. But certainly that's the chatter. But in theory, at least the only way that we would be going to the polls would be if the liberals defeat themselves or engineer their own defeat, or if the NDP bring them down because of that supply and confidence agreement, they've effectively sort of, you know, agreed to be friends kind of Velcroed together their two parties to create what is more or less a majority voting bloc. I would argue there's not a huge appetite for it. That might change on the part of the government if the economy starts to improve. If you want to be sort of really cynical and kind of play game theory with it, well, if by the fall or say the spring after the new year, if inflation has flattened out, if productivity is

back on track, if things are looking sunny, sunny ways, one might say, we saw the Liberals inclined to take advantage of what they thought was an opportune moment in 2021. I would argue that opportune moment was really poorly perceived by them because the electorate was super, super ticked off to be forced to the polls again. But, you know, politics is a game of timing. And so it's quite conceivable. But basically, the liberals would have to do that to themselves or their current partners, the NDP, would have to do it to them. Shannon, it was great to talk to you. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me.

That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wells. Our summer producer is Nagui Nia. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.