Justin Trudeau controls the Liberal Party top to bottom, upside down and sideways, a long-time Liberal caucus member told me this week. No Liberal leader has had such ironclad dominance since his father, Pierre Trudeau.
We recall the unity wars with John Turner, Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, and the party’s distress under Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff. There’s discontent with Justin Trudeau today, owing to the party’s falling support numbers. But not like those times.
There’s something else, those who know him well will tell you, that Justin Trudeau has in common with his father. It’s the steely resolve. He won’t be pushed around, and there are no Liberal luminaries waiting in the wings to do the pushing anyway.
While there’s much speculation that Mr. Trudeau is headed for defeat and the exit gate, who’s to say that even if defeat does come, he will walk away?
If what happened with his father is indicative, Justin Trudeau could lose the next election and remain as Liberal Leader.
After three electoral triumphs, Pierre Trudeau lost in 1979 to Joe Clark and the Progressive Conservatives. But the Liberal Party was content to let him stay. He did so for six months and then stepped down. But when Mr. Clark fumbled away his minority government, the Liberals implored Mr. Trudeau, despite his defeat, to come back – and he did so.
Justin Trudeau is younger in office by almost a decade than his father. He has no big ambition beyond politics. If Pierre Poilievre wins a minority there is a good chance Mr. Trudeau would continue as Liberal chief, and with the help of the NDP he could try and topple a minority Tory government.
There’s no rule that says a prime minister has to leave after just one defeat. Paul Martin did so immediately after losing to Stephen Harper, who won a minority in 2006. But over dinner with him a few months later, I got the sense Mr. Martin regretted that decision. Had he stayed on, a comeback was possible.
Mr. Trudeau is under such constant attack we’re given to wonder why he would want to stick around. But a close friend of the Prime Minister told me the heat from hard-right haters doesn’t bother him. Nor does, he said, all the criticism in the media. The latter is something I find difficult to believe. All PMs care about their popularity, and therefore their press. That said, Pierre Trudeau didn’t seem to care as much as others, and maybe his son doesn’t either.
Other Liberal PMs had chasers aggressive in their bids to succeed them. Pierre Trudeau had John Turner, Mr. Turner had Jean Chrétien, Mr. Chrétien had Paul Martin, Lester Pearson had several. No one in Justin Trudeau’s cabinet has attained great prominence. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is competent but didactic. Anita Anand has been shunted off to the mid-level Treasury portfolio. Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne is an effective back-slapping retail politician, but it’s likely not time for another Quebecker.
Modern convention suggests that after about a decade, fatigue sets in with any government and the time for a change-rationale resonates. Justin Trudeau appears bent on trying to defy the odds by going for the brass ring again. Stephen Harper was unwise to try, and I think Mr. Trudeau would be as well. He could step down with a winning record, as having rescued the party from third-place status, as having put in place significant social reforms while facing up reasonably well to extraordinary challenges like Donald Trump and the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Trudeau – they’ve won seven of eight elections – has governed Canada for 23 of the last 55 years. Is that not enough?
It’s possible that JT’s support numbers will crater so much that he will realize the die is cast and it’s time to step down. It’s what happened with Brian Mulroney, whose backing plummeted into the teens. But Mr. Trudeau’s approval ratings are in the thirties and about even with those of career politician Mr. Poilievre.
The lack of enthusiasm for the latter is what offers Mr. Trudeau hope. The Trudeau brand is hurting. It is looking – as it was in 1979 – worn out. But what of the other brand? ln the United States and Britain, retrograde populist conservatism has wreaked havoc. Mr. Poilievre is no Donald Trump, but his support base is of a backward populist colouration well to the right of mainstream Canada.
The quality of the opposition helped keep Pierre Trudeau afloat. It could continue to do the same for his son.