John Ivison: The more at sea Trudeau has seemed, the more assured Poilievre has been

Few figures in recent Canadian history have been more divisive than this prime minister — the idealistic reformer who has abandoned his principles

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Published Dec 20, 2024  •  5 minute read

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre on the day finance minister Chrystia Freeland announced she quit her cabinet role, Dec. 16, 2024. Photo by Justin Tang/The Canadian Press; Dave Chan/AFP via Getty Images

The week in politics has been defined by a series of momentous events but Friday’s lame duck cabinet appointment process was not one of them.

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It was a Potemkin shuffle, designed to hide a deeply rotten reality behind an impressive, business-as-usual facade.

Aside from David McGuinty, a long overdue addition as new public safety minister, this crop is not going to have time to make any impression, no matter how “laser-focused on delivering for Canadians” they may be.

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The selection process does not bear close inspection. Of 153 Liberals, 30 were already in cabinet, 11 have said they are not running again and 40 to 50 are said to want the prime minister to take a long walk off a short pier.

If you weed out the borderline idiots that sneak into every caucus, the prime minister was effectively left with no choice at all.

Jagmeet Singh’s statement that the Liberals don’t deserve another chance and that the NDP will vote to bring down the government, no matter who is leading the Liberal party, seems unequivocal, clear-cut and devoid of wiggle room.

That means that even if Justin Trudeau terminates the parliamentary session in January, it merely prolongs the inevitable collapse of this government. He cannot prorogue indefinitely, and sooner rather than later, one of the opposition parties will table a vote of no-confidence that now looks set to spark an election.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has attempted to circumvent this process by writing to the Governor General, Mary Simon, claiming that Trudeau has now lost the confidence of the House and that she should use her authority to reconvene Parliament before the end of the year to test that theory in a vote.

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Stranger things have happened, even if it seems unlikely.

But one way or another, Trudeau’s goose is cooked.

He has said he will “reflect” on criticism of his leadership. But the cabinet appointment process has likely made things worse, producing a bunch of ingrates, who got in but expected more, and dozens more malcontents, who got nothing.

The most consequential event of the week, after Chrystia Freeland’s resignation, was the Conservative leader’s response

The only imponderables are, firstly, whether Trudeau will resign and use prorogation as an opportunity to hold a truncated leadership race; and, secondly, how much economic damage will be done to Canada in the meantime by an incoming Trump administration that feasts on the weakness of its adversaries (and we should be under no illusions, Donald Trump sees all countries as adversaries and competitors).

David McGuinty’s brother, former Ontario premier Dalton, used to say there is no wrong time to make the right decision. But it would be wrong for Trudeau to wait until late January to announce he is spending more time with his family.

The country needs to be represented by someone that Trump doesn’t mock openly. In his latest interview, the president-elect mused on how Trudeau’s mother was “beautiful and wild” and that Justin is a communist like Fidel Castro, who may have been his father.

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Dominic LeBlanc is almost impossible to dislike, has been an MP since 2000 and has held seven ministerial portfolios. He would be the obvious choice to charm the Trump administration, were it not for the fact he’s just been made finance minister, despite his own admission that he is not an “economics expert.”

No wonder 58 per cent of Canadians say they want an election as soon as possible. Nearly nine in 10 Canadians say it is time for a change in government, even though one third of voters say there isn’t a good alternative.

That is the only lifeline the Liberals have — that somehow in an election campaign when people are paying attention, they can persuade Canadians that Poilievre isn’t worth the risk.

That’s why I think the most consequential event of the week, after Chrystia Freeland’s resignation, was the Conservative leader’s response.

He has been criticized, not least by me, as being a caricature who offers simple slogans to complex problems; someone who has engaged in political hit-jobs and played footsie with conspiracy theories.

But the more at sea Trudeau has seemed, the more assured Poilievre has been.

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On Monday, he reached out to former Liberal voters, saying they supported the Trudeau government in good faith because they thought it was the right thing for the country but have been let down by the prime minister.

“What I’m calling for is, let’s bring home the common sense consensus of Liberals who believe in liberty and Conservatives who believe in conserving it. Fiscal responsibility, compassion for our neighbours. These are shared common values that will bind up our nation’s wounds and bring us back together,” he said.

It was eerily reminiscent of Trudeau’s speech to the Liberal convention a decade ago in Montreal, when he appealed to disillusioned Conservative supporters. “People in Ottawa talk about the Conservative base as if it is some angry mob to be feared. They’re wrong. As you all know, the 5.8 million Canadians who voted Conservative are not your enemies. They’re your neighbours,” he said.

The unseasoned Liberal leader then went on to patronize Stephen Harper as “an idealistic reformer” who had abandoned the principles he once held dear. “We already know that Mr. Harper will throw any person under the bus who no longer serves his political purpose,” he said.

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It was a promising start for Trudeau, who quickly became the most popular politician in Canada. But the idea he would be the great unifier drawing the country together faded quickly. Few figures in recent Canadian history have been more divisive than Justin Trudeau, who won successive elections by targeting left-of-centre voters in major metropolitan centres and vilifying much of the rest of the country.

The events of the last week suggest Trudeau is the idealistic reformer who has abandoned his principles and who has no qualms about discarding people who no longer serve his political purposes.

National Post
jivison@criffel.ca
Twitter.com/IvisonJ

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