Prime Minister Justin Trudeau answers reporters questions after an announcement in Rocky Harbour, N.L. on Sept. 4.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Long-time Liberal MP Alexandra Mendès says she’s skeptical that her party can win the next federal election as long as Justin Trudeau remains leader, taking aim at the Prime Minister a day before he tries to rally MPs at a caucus retreat ahead of their return to the House of Commons.
Ms. Mendès, a Montreal-area MP, said Monday that while she personally doesn’t want Mr. Trudeau to resign, the resounding message from her constituents is that he needs to. She added that she has serious doubts about the party’s prospects in the next federal campaign should Mr. Trudeau be the Liberal Leader.
“I admire immensely what he’s done, but right now, if I’m realistic, and from what I’m hearing, no, we wouldn’t win,” Ms. Mendès said.
Mr. Trudeau has been adamant that he will stay on as leader despite trailing the Conservatives in public opinion polls for more than a year. But Ms. Mendès’s comments propel the debate about his future back into the spotlight after it was tamped down in the wake of the party’s unexpected loss in June’s by-election in Toronto-St. Paul’s.
Still most Liberals, including many in caucus and the senior team around Mr. Trudeau, do not expect the Prime Minister to face a serious internal revolt. MPs and senior staff say most of caucus has turned their attention to how the party can best position itself ahead of the next election.
To that end, the Liberals announced Monday that former central banker Mark Carney will be taking on a formal role in the party as chair of a Leader’s Task Force on Economic Growth. The appointment follows a decision by Liberals to focus on affordability and economic issues ahead of the federal election, expected at any time in the next year.
Mr. Carney, the former governor of the banks of England and Canada, has long been touted as a potential leadership contender should Mr. Trudeau resign. In the wake of the party’s by-election loss in Toronto-St. Paul’s, some Liberals said they wanted to see him get off the sidelines and into the trenches.
However, previous efforts to get him to join the government were unsuccessful.
News of Mr. Carney’s appointment was overshadowed by the comments made by Ms. Mendès in Nanaimo, B.C., as the Liberal caucus gathered to regroup after a rocky summer that began with the by-election loss and ended with the NDP’s abrupt termination of its deal to support the minority government, the exit of the party’s national campaign director and an exodus of senior staff.
Until Monday, New Brunswick MP Wayne Long had been the only caucus member to publicly call for the Prime Minister’s exit.
Ms. Mendès told The Globe and Mail she will deliver her constituents’ message to Mr. Trudeau when the caucus gathers behind closed doors starting Tuesday. “It’s not necessarily the government that they have anything against, it’s more the Prime Minister himself,” she said.
She said she has heard from hundreds of constituents over the summer who almost universally had the same perspective on Mr. Trudeau. She said they feel preached to and that there is a failure to match his rhetoric with action on issues such as climate change.
“I can’t be deaf to what my constituents are telling me.”
Nova Scotia MP Jaime Battiste came to the Prime Minister’s defence, telling reporters on Monday that he’s “totally confident with his vision” and doesn’t put much stock in the poll numbers.
Mr. Trudeau spent much of August making campaign-style stops across the country, but his efforts to win back disaffected voters have not moved the needle, said Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute.
Voter intention has not meaningfully changed “regardless of what the Liberals have tried to do,” Ms. Kurl said, pointing to public opinion polling that has stagnated at a double-digit advantage for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives.
At the heart of the numbers so far, she said, is the desire for a change in government.
“Mr. Trudeau is dealing with a fatigue factor,” Ms. Kurl said. “All of these governments have a best-by date.”
She also cautioned that while changing the leader might boost morale among the shrunken Liberal base, the Angus Reid Institute’s polling suggests that at this point it would be unlikely to grow the Liberal tent. She noted that south of the border, the Democrats are also learning that switching the person at the top is not a fix-all, given that they are still in a tight race.
Liberal caucus chair and Quebec MP Brenda Shanahan said on Monday that MPs are focused on preparing for the possibility of an impending election. “This caucus is unified around that objective, how do we win the next election for Canadians?”
Now on deck to help them is Mr. Carney, who has never ruled out a leadership bid should the job open up and has recently been putting distance between himself and Mr. Trudeau.
In the spring he raised the possibility of replacing carbon pricing with something else and criticized the most recent budget for not doing enough to foster economic growth.
Now the party says he will be helping them in a volunteer capacity, and that work begins immediately with a briefing to MPs in Nanaimo on Tuesday morning. However, other details weren’t yet available, including who else is on the new economic task force.
Mr. Carney has several board and corporate appointments, including serving as chair of Bloomberg LP and as chairman at Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management. He is also UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance.
With reports from Mark Rendell in Toronto, Robert Fife in Ottawa, and The Canadian Press