The start of a New Year is upon us, and Trudeau has (once again) broken with tradition. He has cancelled all year end interviews and is avoiding the media entirely. Considering his government has been subsidizing Canadian media since before the pandemic and has reaped very gentle coverage, this is utterly shocking.
Why is this happening? There are a number of reasons. First, the Liberal Party in Canada remains in freefall in the polls. This time last year, the Liberals were 20 points behind the Conservatives in the polls, and Trudeau behaved as though he would be able to turn it around. Now, the Liberals are closer to 30 points behind in the polls, if the latest Angus-Reid poll is accurate. It puts the Federal Liberals at 16 percent support. Mapped out, this would give the Liberals only 6 seats (out of 338) in the next election. And the polling shows that Trudeau would not win in his own riding. This would be an utterly humiliating defeat for the Liberal party in Canada.
Second, just before the budget was released in December, Trudeau’s Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, and one of his most loyal supporters, Chrystia Freeland, suddenly resigned. Freeland has been openly floated as a possible successor to Trudeau and a stalwart supporter through his most controversial decisions. Her decision to resign was based on Trudeau’s desire to replace her as Finance Minister with Mark Carney (former Governor of the Bank of Canada) and another possible successor. Trudeau also wanted to expand Canada’s deficit far beyond what he previously promised, and Freeland stated that she could no longer support him.
This has -third- led directly to a firestorm among the Liberal Party Caucuses (Members of Parliament representing various regions). The Ontario Liberal Caucus, the Quebec Liberal Caucus and the Maritime Liberal Caucus (representing Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland) have all issued letters asking Trudeau to resign.
Fourth and finally, New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh has announced that he will vote to bring down the government when Parliament reconvenes January 27, 2025.
So, does this mean an election is (finally) on the horizon for Canada?
Unfortunately, the answer is only maybe.
The first problem is that if Trudeau does not want to resign, he does not have to. The Liberal Party of Canada has no mechanism to remove their leader (Trudeau) if he does not have support. The Conservate party has this method and used it to remove Erin O’Toole (the previous leader) during the pandemic when he was too supportive of lockdowns. However, there has been an emergency meeting called for Wednesday, January 8 for the Liberal Caucus to meet. They may be able to change those rules then, but my prediction is that they will not
The second problem is that to bring down the government, all of the opposition parties (the Conservatives, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois) must vote non-confidence in the government. While the NDP has been consistent in threatening to vote non-confidence, when a non-confidence vote occurs they still usually vote to prop up the government. The most recent vote was in December when the Conservative party quoted NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s criticism of the government in their non-confidence motion, and the NDP still voted to prop up the Liberals. The main reason for this is that Singh will not be eligible for a Parliamentary pension until February 2025 and it is obvious he will prop up the government until he is eligible.
The final problem is what is called prorogation. This is defined as interrupting Parliament without dissolving it. This means that no votes can take place for a certain length of time. In theory, Trudeau could ask the Governor General (King’s representative) to prorogue Parliament until an election is required by law, which is October of 2025. However, the budget only provides for funding until March 31, 2025, so there is a potential problem using prorogation for so long. It is the most likely step that Trudeau will take to keep power.
Why is Trudeau clinging to power? Partially ego. Partially a desire to keep his agenda going despite the fact that he has lost the support of Canadians (many left-wing governments are doing this right now). But I think the reason, as I have said before, is that Trudeau has no future outside of government. He has no law degree; business does not want him and most governments around the world view him as a fool. He wants some kind of golden parachute that will allow him to continue to live as an important person. The problem is that no one seems interested in giving him one. So, Canadians have to find a way to give him the boot. The sooner the better.
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