Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference in Montreal, on July 3.ANDREJ IVANOV/Getty Images
One begins to long for the decisiveness and efficiency of the American political system. One day the president, behind in the polls and given no chance of recovering, decides not to seek re-election. The next day his replacement as the party’s standard-bearer has been proposed, seconded and confirmed.
Compare the state of play in Canada. The Liberals, under Justin Trudeau, are as much as 20 points behind in the polls, and have been for more than a year. There isn’t any doubt as to the cause: It is the policies and persona of the leader. Neither is there much doubt about the solution. Either the policies must change, or the leader, if not both.
Yet a month after the Toronto-St. Paul’s by-election ended any remaining Liberal illusions about the gravity of their situation – the equivalent of Joe Biden’s disastrous debate for the Democrats – no similar political earthquake has occurred.
Indeed, there has been no change at the top of any kind: The same leader, advised by the same officials, is pursuing exactly the same policies as before. And no one is even talking about it. It’s … eerie.
The Liberal caucus, after a brief round of private kvetching to the media – and a couple of public calls for the Prime Minister’s head, from MPs who had previously announced they were not running – has gone quiet.
The Prime Minister, after a perfunctory news conference in which he refused to resign and declined to accept responsibility, has more or less gone into hiding: from the press, from the premiers, even from his own caucus.
Meanwhile his loyalists have been busy blaming others for the St. Paul’s debacle. First, the Liberal House Leader, Karina Gould, attempted to pin it on the local campaign. Latterly, anonymous PMO staff were quoted complaining of the weakness of the Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland, as a communicator.
The Prime Minister, cornered by reporters at the NATO summit, conspicuously refused to endorse her continued tenure – he would say only that he had “full confidence” in her “abilities” – amid reports that Mark Carney, the former Bank of Canada governor, was being courted for the job.
When that went nowhere – Mr. Carney cannot possibly be foolish enough to enlist on this ship of the damned – anonymous sources further let it be known that, notwithstanding the PMO’s earlier shivving of her, the Prime Minister had told Ms. Freeland her job is “currently safe.” Currently. You can imagine how reassured she must have been.
The impression left is one of paralysis, born of confusion. There is talk of a cabinet shuffle, but so far none has materialized, beyond finding a replacement at Labour for the departing Seamus O’Regan. But then, last summer’s cabinet shuffle was supposed to have been the opportunity for a reset, and we saw what a success that was.
Certainly there is no sign of any change in policy terms. Just as the budget, amid the rising clamour for measures to address the growth crisis, responded by raising taxes, so the government’s answer to critics of its failure to meet our NATO commitments was to issue a pledge to do so that was so watery and off-handed as to positively broadcast its contempt for the idea.
Likewise, the government’s response to the revelations, now documented in three separate official reports, of massive Chinese interference in Canada’s democracy – hugely enabled by its own negligence and indifference – was to send the Foreign Minister, Mélanie Joly, to Beijing to make amends.
Ms. Joly reported afterward that she tried to make her hosts understand that “it’s not the government” that stands in the way of a thaw in bilateral relations but “it’s more Canadian perceptions toward China, which are negative right now.” Can’t think why.
To those members of the Liberal caucus who had earlier dared – anonymously, as always – to suggest the government move toward the middle, or temper its instinct for self-marginalization, or shore up any of its perceived weaknesses, the message was clear: It’s not going to happen.
The Prime Minister’s last attempt to tinker with Liberal policy, the carve-out for heating oil from the carbon tax, blew up in his face. The lesson he seems to have learned is, not that you should not make crassly political changes to bedrock policy for the too-obvious purpose of appeasing sectional interests, but that you should not make changes of any kind.
In a way, this is admirable. The Prime Minister seems prepared to go down with the ship, lashed to the wheel and locked on course. Whether the crew are quite so ready to go down with him is another matter, but as they appear to have had their mouths sewn shut we may never know.