Trudeau reaches out to MPs
Under pressure to relinquish leadership, PM seeks to quell concerns in caucus
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been working the phones to tamp down any caucus discontent, including on a call Tuesday with his national caucus representatives, following a week of pressure on him to relinquish the Liberal leadership.
Senior government officials expressed optimism that, after a long weekend in which Trudeau told the CBC is he “committed” to his job, the whirlwind of speculation about his grip on power could calm down.
At the same time, multiple MPs inside caucus downplayed the prospect of a brewing “revolt” against Trudeau as a single caucus member — New Brunswick’s Wayne Long — remained the only current Liberal MP openly calling for him to go.
There remain other Liberals — both inside and outside caucus — who think the party is now better off without Trudeau as leader, including figures like former Trudeau environment minister Catherine McKenna.
Most, however, are refusing to go public, for now.
On Tuesday, a Liberal MP told the Star that Trudeau should resign, and that “most” caucus colleagues agree it’s time for the leader to step down.
“If the prime minister cares about those important legacy items then he would step aside and give someone else a chance that can actually beat the Conservatives and ensure the continuation of child care, dental care, pharmacare,” said the MP, who agreed to speak on condition they aren’t identified, but isn’t Long.
Just how widespread that feeling is, or to what extent it is being expressed directly to Trudeau, is hard to assess.
One senior government source said it does not seem that a majority of caucus members are demanding Trudeau quit. However, a second senior official said only that the prime minister and advisers in his office have had many conversations in recent days, with more planned, while declining to say how those conversations are going or what might happen next.
What became clear after the Canada Day long weekend was that a majority of MPs did not want to call a national caucus meeting to vent frustrations at this time, some because they are on vacation, others because they believe it would be a media circus. Instead, a majority wanted their views conveyed at a meeting of the national caucus executive, made up of MPs who represent groups of politicians from different regions.
A meeting scheduled for late Tuesday afternoon was seen as the chance to air those concerns, with some saying that if Trudeau is sticking around, there ought to be changes to reflect the lessons learned after last week’s stunning byelection upset in Toronto.
Mark Gerretsen, the Liberal MP for Kingston and the Islands, told the Star that the result in Toronto— St. Paul’s clearly shows the public is frustrated and that the governing Liberals need to change tack to better understand and respond to that feeling.
But he rejected the suggestion that Trudeau needs to resign for that to happen, or that a major cabinet shakeup is required, as some Liberals have told the Star they would like to see.
Instead, Gerretsen said the party needs some “genuine self-reflection” on its political strategy, like how it communicates its policies. He, too, rejected the suggestion that most of the sitting caucus want Trudeau to go.
“I certainly don’t think it’s anywhere near the majority of caucus,” Gerretsen said, adding that Liberals “don’t just throw out” their leader after a challenging political stretch.
“That’s what Conservatives do,” he said.
The governing Liberals have lagged far behind the Opposition Conservatives for months now in national polls, a situation that spawned occasional speculation about whether Trudeau should or would lead the Liberals into the next federal election, scheduled for October 2025.
After the Liberals lost the June 24 byelection in Toronto—St. Paul’s — a riding that the party had held since 1993, and the first loss in the Grits’ stronghold of Toronto since before the 2015 election — calls came from former Chrétien- and Martin-era Liberal ministers like Wayne Easter and John Manley who said Trudeau should resign.
In recent days, Calgary Liberal MP George Chahal sent a letter by email to other Liberal MPs that called for an urgent national caucus meeting to give “immediate attention” to the byelection loss.
Chahal’s email claimed there was a “clear consensus” in caucus that they must have a “national discussion” about improving how the party and government serve Canadians. He has not responded to the Star’s requests for comment.
But the same MP who told the Star Tuesday that Trudeau must resign said such a meeting would be futile, since Trudeau “would say some cliché at the end, like our caucus meetings always finish with him kind of trying to rally the troops.”
The MP added: “It would not resonate. It would go in one ear and out the other because MPs have lost their faith in his ability to successfully lead the party to another election win.”
Part of the problem, the MP said, is Trudeau’s lack of humility and inability to own up to his missteps — including his commitment to stay on as Liberal leader in the wake of last week’s byelection loss.
“What he would probably characterize as dogged determination is actually pigheaded stubbornness,” said the MP, who also pointed to prime minister’s decision to enjoy himself at a cultural festival last Friday — rather than trying to immediately calm his own caucus — as particularly telling.
“Here’s a prime minister who does not enjoy the confidence of, we believe anyway, the majority of the caucus, is going through a really difficult time, certainly in terms of polling, and now he has MPs calling for his resignation,” the MP said.
“Don’t you think that it would be a good idea for him to pick up the phone and call every member of caucus?”