Time for PM to step down

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/01/2025 (259 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If this latest avalanche of bad news doesn’t cause Justin Trudeau to step down from his job as prime minister, nothing will.

On Dec. 21, multiple media outlets reported that during a virtual meeting of the Ontario Liberal parliamentary caucus, more than 50 Liberal MPs arrived at the conclusion that Trudeau needs to step down as their party’s leader.

“We’ve reached a breaking point,” one Ontario Liberal MP said. “There’s a critical mass now that has been reached and that was not in place before.”

Two days later, on Dec. 23, the Atlantic caucus of Liberal MPs reportedly joined their Ontario colleagues in calling on the PM to step aside. In a letter to Trudeau, Atlantic caucus chair Kody Blois wrote that “The discussion this morning centred around the need for you to resign as the Leader of the Liberal Party and to urgently allow for a process to determine a new leader to replace you.”

This past Tuesday, it was reported that Quebec Liberal MPs are also calling for Trudeau’s resignation.

According to the Ipolitics website, an unidentified member of that caucus said that “A consensus was reached that the prime minister needs to step down and caucus chair Stéphane Lauzon had been instructed to inform Trudeau of this decision.” That has been denied by Lauzon, however, who told Politico that “No letter has been sent to the prime minister from the Quebec caucus.”

Whatever the truth is within the Quebec Liberal caucus, the reality is that Trudeau’s leadership, and his tenure as prime minister, is hanging by a thread with no realistic hope of recovery before the next federal election, which could happen as soon as a few weeks from now.

On Monday, The Angus Reid Institute revealed if an election were held last week, an astounding 45 per cent of voters would cast ballots for Conservative candidates, while just 21 per cent of voters would vote for NDP candidates. The Liberals are in third place, at just 16 per cent support.

The same poll found that almost half of Canadians, and almost 60 per cent of current Liberal supporters, say that it’s time for Trudeau to step aside and call for a party leadership contest.

On Tuesday, Nanos Research came out with slightly different poll results, but they are almost as ugly for the Liberals as the Angus Reid numbers. The Nanos poll found Tory support at an even higher 47 per cent, with the Liberals far back at 21 per cent and the NDP in third at 17 per cent.

Even before the Angus Reid and Nanos numbers were released this week, the 338canada.com website was predicting the Conservatives would win a record 232 seats in the next election — a gain of 119 seats — while the Liberals would be reduced to third place in the House of Commons, with just 39 seats.

According to the Angus Reid news release, the Liberals’ 16 per cent support “represents the lowest level of support for the party in Angus Reid Institute tracking dating back to 2014. It is also quite possibly the lowest vote intention the Liberals have ever received in the modern era.”

With all of that dismal data in mind, the Liberal Party is not merely in danger of losing the next election; that seems inevitable at this point. It is in danger of being wiped out for a generation, if not permanently.

Given that bleak reality, combined with the obvious fact that a majority of Canadians, and a majority of Trudeau’s own Liberal MPs, want him gone, why is he so stubbornly hanging around?

Is it just that — stubbornness? Does he arrogantly believe that only he can lead the nation? Having rescued the Liberal Party from near-death a decade ago, does he believe he has earned the right to destroy it?

Or, is this just another political leader who, like so many defeated leaders in the past, is wilfully blind to the writing on the wall and refuses to be pushed aside on terms other than his own?

Whatever the explanation may be, it is both sad and disappointing that the situation has reached this ignominious point, at a time when Canada must grapple with a host of challenging issues that require strong leadership and national consensus.

The situation, with all of its uncertainty and instability, cannot continue any longer. For the good of the nation, the good of his party, and the good of his legacy — which may, with the passage of time, be viewed in a more positive light — we join the growing chorus in urging Trudeau to immediately resign as Liberal Party leader.