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Toronto: The process to select the successor of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will commence this week, but that person will face the twin challenges of a severely tarnished Liberal Party brand as well as the prospect of facing a confidence vote almost immediately into their tenure.
Following Trudeau’s announcement on Monday morning in Ottawa that he intends to resign as PM once the next Liberal leader is elected, the party’s president Sachit Mehra, in a statement, said its National Board will meet “later this week” and “begin the nationwide democratic process of selecting a new leader”.
Parliament has been prorogued till March 24 and that will provide the party with two-and-a-half months to complete the process.
“This country deserves a real choice in the next election and it has become clear to me that if I’m having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election,” Trudeau said during his press conference on Monday.
But his successor will have to deal with a party that has grown incredibly unpopular over the past two years. As University of Toronto political scientist Andrew McDougall said, “Avoiding the worst outcome is maybe all they can do.”
“Can they turn it around? Maybe, but I think it will be a very heavy lift,” he added.
Among the contenders will be former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, who may have precipitated the crisis with her shock resignation on December 16. Freeland entered politics in 2015 as a star candidate recruited by Trudeau and is closely associated with him and the incumbent government so “that will hurt her”, McDougall said. What may help is that “she broke with him in such a public way”.
Other Cabinet Ministers face the same problem of association, including Dominic LeBlanc, Anita Anand, Melanie Joly and François-Philippe Champagne. Former Bank of Canada (and Bank of England) Governor Mark Carney is another potential candidate but the question will be whether he is suited for “retail politics”. Carney said on Monday he is considering running for the leadership.
Finally, former British Columbia Premier Christy Clark doesn’t carry the baggage of being part of the government or associated with it as even Carney has been, but doesn’t have much of a national profile. She posted on X, “I look forward to joining tens of thousands of Canadians to choose our next leader. This is the biggest opportunity in over a decade that we’ve had to grow our party and welcome new Liberals — including Canadians concerned about the future of our country.”
Whoever is the successor, they will have scant runway. Whenever Parliament has its next session, they will face the prospect of an almost immediate vote of no confidence, even on the Throne Speech, where the new government introduces its agenda, or on securing funding to keep it going after March 31.
Trudeau said, somewhat hopefully, “Removing me from the equation as the leader who will fight the next election for the Liberal Party should also decrease the level of polarisation that we’re seeing right now in the House and in Canadian politics.”
The opposition is no mood to oblige, as Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre posted, “Nothing has changed. Every Liberal MP and Leadership contender supported EVERYTHING Trudeau did for 9 years, and now they want to trick voters by swapping in another Liberal face to keep ripping off Canadians for another 4 years, just like Justin.” He made that point in a longer video message.
Meanwhile, New Democratic Party or NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said, in a statement, “The Liberals do not deserve another chance, no matter who is the leader.”
However, while Singh ended a formal agreement with the Liberals, which kept their minority government afloat since 2021, the NDP voted against multiple no confidence motions last year including one that used Singh’s own words of criticism of Trudeau.
Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-François Blanchet, speaking to the media in French, said they still face a Liberal Party shaped by Trudeau and there was “no possible way for this party to become something else in a few weeks” so the only option was an election.
Federal elections are scheduled for October this year but could occur earlier given the current fragility of the incumbents.
The last time an unpopular PM was replaced in Canada was in 1993 when Kim Campbell assumed charge from Brian Mulroney. However, her government lasted just four months and was routed in the subsequent election. McDougall also pointed to the example of Rishi Sunak, who became PM following the exits of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss but was drubbed in the British elections last year.
There is an outside chance the party’s National Caucus meeting on Wednesday could seek the selection of an interim leader thereby hastening Trudeau’s departure from office.
But, regardless of which strategy is employed, McDougall felt the ruling party is “headed for a bad electoral defeat”.
