Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s inner circle is not planning a major reset in the face of persistent headwinds for the incumbent government and will instead focus on the issues they’ve already prioritized, with housing and cost of living topping the list, according to two government officials.
However, one of the officials did not rule out changes in the future, saying if they do happen it will be in the wake of the caucus retreat in B.C. next month.
The Globe is not identifying the officials because they were not permitted to discuss internal party plans.
Heading into a three-day cabinet retreat that began Sunday evening, an official in the Prime Minister’s Office said major changes in direction are not on the agenda. Instead, the focus is on delivering on what Mr. Trudeau has already promised Canadians, with an eye to what the Liberals can still get done before the next federal election, scheduled for October, 2025.
The official said the view from the government is that the Liberals can’t dig out of their polling hole without ensuring Canadians feel some pocketbook relief.
The expectations were echoed by a second government official who said the retreat’s focus is on governing and crafting a fall agenda centred on housing, cost of living and managing any fallout from the U.S. election. They said getting campaign ready for Canada’s own federal election next year will also be a priority.
The minority Liberals have trailed the opposition Conservatives in public-opinion polling by double digits for a year and Mr. Trudeau’s personal polling numbers are now even worse than his party’s. The Conservatives are also out-fundraising the Liberals by a margin of almost $3 to $1. The Toronto-St. Paul’s by-election loss in June put a fine point on the Liberal’s troubles, when the party lost a seat they have held for three decades and the Conservatives won their first seat in Toronto since 2015.
Since that defeat, a chorus of Liberal Party stalwarts and sitting MPs have called for major changes to the Prime Minister’s senior staff, his cabinet and his government’s policy agenda. However, the view in the Prime Minister’s Office and from others within caucus is that those calls for change came from a minority of MPs, and that a bigger portion of them support the existing policy plan and want to see the government deliver.
The challenge for the Liberals now is that their position with the electorate has stabilized at a distant second to the Conservatives, said Dan Arnold, who was previously the research and advertising director in the Prime Minister’s Office and is now with the firm Pollara Strategic Insights.
“They’ve got a lot of ground to make up,” he said. “They’re not sinking in quicksand any more, it’s up to their waist, and now they’ve got to pull themselves out.”
Asked on Sunday if the Liberals would be going with change or the status quo, Labour Minister Steve MacKinnon made the case for the latter.
During what he described as a “refreshing summer,” Mr. MacKinnon said the message he heard from constituents is that they’re happy with what the government has put in place, including dental care and child care.
He said “economic optimism” is starting to take root with inflation cooling, interest rates dropping and “a lot of expansion and investment going on in the country that should give every region of this country a lot of optimism.”
But that optimism is not shared by everyone in his party. Ahead of the retreat, The Globe spoke with 15 Liberal MPs, government officials and party operatives from across the country who shared their views on the political state of play for the Liberals.
The Globe is not identifying the Liberals because they were not authorized to discuss internal party dynamics.
The picture they paint shows a divergence among Liberals, with one group demoralized about their future prospects; concerned by the party’s failure to mount an effective counterattack against Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre; and worried that the current trajectory will lead to more MPs and staff quitting. They describe a sense of resignation in the Liberal ranks and said while they have largely stopped expecting major changes, they’re hopeful that the Prime Minister will present a credible plan by the time the caucus meets in Nanaimo, B.C., next month.
Another group, though, believes that better inflation numbers and interest rates will improve the electorate’s mood before the next election and that Mr. Trudeau’s potential path to victory will widen. They also expressed optimism on the heels of the Democratic convention in the U.S. that a positive message can resonate with voters, and some argued that selling such a message does not require a change in leader as happened with President Joe Biden.
That second camp of Liberals also largely dismissed the calls for change in the wake of the June by-election loss, saying a cabinet shuffle risked ruffling more feathers than it settles, that a senior staff shakeup would have no impact on voters, and that any policy reversals risked being seen as desperate.
There was one area though where all Liberals agreed: The party needs to crystallize its attack to counter Mr. Poilievre and mount a sustained campaign to make the argument and ensure voters hear it.
Liberal pollster and founder of the firm Relay Strategies, Kyla Ronellenfitsch, said the government’s “fundamental, strategic flaw” was not already having such an ad campaign in place to aggressively define Mr. Poilievre.
Barring a change in leadership, she said that is likely the party’s only hope to change its trajectory.
“Voters have to actually fear him or he has to be so unpalatable in their eyes that the continuation of Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister is viewed as preferable to a potential Prime Minister Pierre Poilievre,” Ms. Ronellenfitsch said.