Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a news conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Sept. 21.MIKE SEGAR/Reuters
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is ending the year with fewer internal headwinds after some Liberals see the party regaining their footing and believe caucus anxiety over the government’s fortunes has eased slightly.
In recent months, the minority Liberals have struggled in public opinion polls, lagged in fundraising and been criticized for being out of touch with voters. Heading into the fall, Mr. Trudeau also faced internal woes with disgruntled caucus members raising concerns about his leadership and skepticism about his future after spending the summer getting an earful on the doorsteps. Four months later, that’s shifted.
The Globe and Mail spoke with a dozen MPs, senior party operatives and government staff for an inside look at the position the party finds itself in now and how it plans to respond.
Despite a rough 2023, they say the mood among Liberals is better than just a few months ago, in part because the party believes it still has time to turn things around but also because they are ending the year with what they believe is a sharper message to counter the leading Conservatives.
“There’s no question it’s tough being a Liberal MP these days,” said Ontario MP John McKay. “But in an ironic way, Pierre Poilievre has done for Liberals what the party couldn’t do for itself, giving an esprit de corps and a rationale to fight the next election.”
The Globe spoke with eight Liberal MPs from across the country, who shared their views on where their party stands after a year of reckoning. The Globe is not naming many of the MPs because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive party matters publicly.
While all of them said the Liberals still face an uphill battle to climb out of their slump, most are more optimistic now than they were in the summer that the party can change its trajectory. That shift in mood was in large part attributed to their belief an election is still more than a year away, meaning time could be on their side.
They say they are convinced the Prime Minister is determined to stay on as Liberal Leader and believe he is beginning to make the changes needed after Mr. Poilievre’s election as Conservative Leader more than a year ago.
However, given that the Conservatives have consistently held a double-digit lead in polls for months, there is lingering anxiety for MPs, especially among those in swing ridings who won their last election on already narrow margins.
The more united feeling in caucus is largely attributed to what the Liberals believe were Conservative missteps in the waning days of the fall sitting, most notably in forcing round-the-clock voting on the government’s spending plans.
“It brought everybody together to know how we’re all on the same page as to what’s worth fighting for,” said Carolyn Bennett, who recently retired as the Liberal MP for Toronto-St. Paul’s after 26 years.
Nova Scotia MP Kody Blois described the all-nighter with his Liberal colleagues as a turning point, particularly because Mr. Trudeau was in the House alongside them.
“I have played a lot of team sport, and having your leadership in the trenches with you matters,” he said.
“We still have a lot of work ahead of us but I think that as Canadians see more and more of Pierre Poilievre, there will be more and more of what they don’t like about him.”
Still, issues like the carbon pricing carve-out for home heating fuel and the government’s decision to join calls for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in a United Nations resolution have sparked concerns, most notably for Jewish members of caucus and their allies, that the party is caving on its principles.
Many Liberal MPs said they are worried about the Prime Minister’s waning personal popularity among Canadians and are keen to see the party have a stronger sense of direction in 2024.
Two senior sources say the Prime Minister’s Office is aware of the work ahead for Mr. Trudeau, but they say the mood among backbenchers has improved.
They said to expect more changes for Mr. Trudeau in the New Year, including a different communications strategy with fewer podium press conferences and more scrum-style events to show the Prime Minister rolling up his sleeves.
The sources also acknowledged the Conservatives have had a stronger digital and social media presence and the Liberals plan to improve the production value of their content to compete better.
While the Conservatives are vastly out-fundraising the Liberals, raising $23.3-million in the first three quarters of 2023 to the $9.8-million for the governing party, the Liberals said they have had their best November ever. The final results for 2023 fundraising will be released early next year.
The Liberals have recently enjoyed a small bump of two points in the polls, but it’s not statistically significant and isn’t enough to warrant optimism, said Christian Bourque, an executive vice-president for Leger, which conducts market research and analytics.
He said that over the past two months Mr. Poilievre’s popularity as preferred prime minister has dropped by five points. “I don’t know if it’s the Liberals bouncing back or if it’s the Conservatives sort of hitting a bump in the road,” he said.
Mr. Bourque said polls conducted by other firms indicate a similar dip and there is “potentially something happening,” but whether its a true change for the Liberals will only be clear in a month or two.
He said in Leger’s polling, the Conservatives were ahead as of July and that trend continued almost on a straight line through the fall. He said December is the first month where, after two months at 40-per-cent support, the Conservatives dipped below that.
Mr. Bourque said when respondents were asked if they were satisfied with the work of the federal government, there has been a “bounce” of four points but “we are not seeing the same bounce back” in terms of Mr. Trudeau’s own personal numbers.
“It does seem, anyway, that Mr. Trudeau’s brand is hurting a bit more than the Liberal brand itself at the moment.”