JOHNSON – Is the Liberal party happy with letting Justin Trudeau fail?

THERE’S A THOUGHT going around as to why the federal Liberal party in Canada have not pushed for Justin Trudeau to step aside, the same way that Democrats did in the U.S. regarding Joe Biden.

The comparison doesn’t really stand up as Biden’s age and mental acuity issues that were on full view during the last debate with Trump, and this kind of issue just isn’t a thing in Canada.  Even if some Canadians will argue Trudeau’s decision-making and thought processes … we aren’t talking about age induced incapacity.

So, the issues are inherently very different.

But at the same time, why has the Liberal Party not publicly pushed at Trudeau to step aside and salvage the upcoming election with a new face at the helm?  It is very clearly evident that, aside from the Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s ever-increasing pit-bull attacks on Trudeau, Canadians have turned the page and simply don’t want him in power anymore.

Canadians have just had enough.

Canadians … and even fairly stalwart Liberal supporters … have moved on, and are considering placing their vote elsewhere simply to rid themselves from an unpopular prime minister.  We have done it before … this is nothing new.

This time we are balancing the reality as to whether we want a Conservative Poilievre-led party to have a majority government (a cringe worthy thought for many fence sitters), or put our vote in the ‘unlikely to land in office’ NDP … potentially increasing their seat count a bit … or vote Liberal anyway to try to hold the Conservatives back to a minority government and ride out the next four years with a stagnant House.

I don’t see the NDP or the Liberals or even the Bloc supporting a minority Conservative government in the House, but I also doubt we will see a confidence vote too quickly either … so this all means a pretty pointless four years may be in the cards.

But to get there from here, we have to look at voter preferences for the upcoming election.

 Obviously, local riding sentiment will play a big role in how it all works out.

The question still stands: Why is the Liberal party quiet, and not resoundingly pushing for a leadership change, with just over a year to work up to the election?  Surely that’s enough time for voters and party faithful to get comfy with whoever steps up.

The more tongue in cheek, pessimistic approach may be that the Liberal party is shutting up on purpose, and using Trudeau as the identity scapegoat for the unpopular policies and visceral personal distaste created over the last eight years.

The idea is that they are better off to cleanly cut him off AFTER the upcoming election and spend four years in opposition with a new leader, who may slowly grow as the Liberal saviour “for real change” within the party … and this makes some logical sense.

If the Liberal party switched leaders now, they would be running on the Trudeau policy and personality legacy, and there would not be enough time for voters to let go of the animosity they have built up, with Trudeau as the face of the party.

A newly helicoptered-in leader will only run a party with Trudeau’s face clearly stamped on it, and they would very likely still lose the election, and that new leader would be forced to swallow the blame for the loss.  Who wants that job?

They are literally better off dropping 100 per cent of the blame on Trudeau for tanking the election, and afterwards lick their wounds publicly, and begin talk about ‘moving ahead,’ ‘creating new mandate for the future’ and a whole new bunch of rhetorical malarky that sidesteps the past.

In other words, it’s far too late to make any change now, and the party know and quietly accept that they are done.  If Trudeau had announced that he was walking away a year or more ago post COVID … there might have been time, but because he refused to, the groundwork was laid to realize that the election was lost, and the new and only workable goal was now four years away.

An interesting angle is, any potential new Liberal leaders probably saw the writing on the wall, and backed away from any desire to quickly ‘transform the party’ in time for the election … knowing it would mean they would never actually lead government, but join the long list of party leader names who didn’t win an election.

… and who would want to write themselves off like that?

If we leaned back in our chair and thought about it … Trudeau is not actually an idiot, and he obviously has advisers that have pointed this larger picture scenario out to him … which means he knows and has possibly accepted his role at this point, even though we won’t hear him publicly admit to this.  This is possible.

At the end of the day, what matters is where does any of this leave voters?  Well … local riding historical sentiments aside, this election may be more about damage control than voting for who we truly believe will do a good job, and that’s never a healthy or democratic approach, even if it is our reality.

One thought: if Trudeau had embraced voting reform years ago and moved us towards some kind of proportional representation, transferable vote system, he just might have actually been seeing himself staying in office and trying to build some kind of coalition government, as the dust settled next year.

Well … that didn’t work out.

David Johnson is a Kamloops resident, community volunteer and self described maven of all things Canadian.