Prime Minister Justin Trudeau leaves after attending an announcement in Vancouver, on June 25.Chris Helgren/Reuters
Eleven months ago, Justin Trudeau decided to press the reset button. Perhaps you don’t remember?
It was the day when he announced a revamped cabinet, with seven new faces, on July 26. Mr. Trudeau shuffled out seven cabinet ministers who were fired, or decided not to run again, or were told they were about to be booted from cabinet and it would be better if they decided not to run again. Renewal.
One of those who left was Carolyn Bennett, who also decided in December to quit as MP for Toronto-St. Paul’s, presumably so she could spend more time with the people of Denmark, where she was appointed as Canada’s ambassador in January.
That opened a safe Liberal seat for more renewal, so Leslie Church, who left her post as chief of staff to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, could take Ms. Bennett’s place as the Liberal MP for Toronto-St. Paul’s. Ms. Church would be a new face, not so much in Ottawa, but to the electors.
The results are in. Voters never saw Mr. Trudeau’s renewal as renewal.
The Liberals scored an own goal and lost a stronghold they had held for 30 years to the Conservatives. A by-election that normally shouldn’t matter in the grand scheme is now a brightly lit symbol of the Prime Minister’s unpopularity. In retrospect, Mr. Trudeau should have begged Ms. Bennett to stay, and left St. Paul’s alone.
There are a number of reasons why the Liberals lost. The Liberal position on the Israel-Hamas war irked many in the riding’s substantial Jewish community. A capital-gains tax increase probably annoyed some well-off doctors. The Liberals didn’t have Ms. Bennett, a likeable MD. And a by-election can be a good venue for protest voting, where results depend heavily on who shows up to vote in a lower-turnout election.
But the point is that more people wanted to protest Mr. Trudeau in a habitually heavily Liberal riding than to show up to vote for him. The Conservatives campaigned there talking about Mr. Trudeau to motivate people to go to the polls.
Trudeau ‘does not need to quit’ after Liberals lose traditionally safe Toronto riding: Freeland
On Tuesday, Ms. Freeland had to field questions about it at a Toronto news conference, looking like she was being forced to eat dirt. She lamely labelled the loss “disappointing,” insisted Mr. Trudeau doesn’t need to leave office, and said “we know that we have to work hard to win back your trust.” Then she kept telling reporters she’d already answered the question as it was asked over and over.
Mr. Trudeau, at a news conference in British Columbia, didn’t take questions. He said he had heard people’s “concerns and frustrations,” and that he and his government have more work to do to deliver “tangible progress.” So back to the reset button.
It’s not like the Liberals haven’t tried that before. They keep hitting that button, but it doesn’t seem to be attached to anything.
Mr. Trudeau roared into Parliament in January, 2023, promising combat with Pierre Poilievre on affordability. He shuffled his cabinet that July to put in seven new ministers most people can’t name, in a shuffle which turned out to be the starting gun for the debacle in Toronto-St. Paul’s. There was a fall focus on affordability with near-daily press conferences. A budget this spring was supposedly aimed at youth. Then this by-election.
The renewal plans haven’t worked. For Mr. Trudeau, everything new is the same old, same old.
Ask three Liberals in Ottawa what they should do now and you’ll get five answers, from more spending to cutting taxes to having the government say and do as little as possible for eight months hoping interest rates will fall and people will eventually be less angry and more willing to listen to Mr. Trudeau.
Those Liberals also see the obvious option of Mr. Trudeau resigning. But apart from the fact that Mr. Trudeau has stayed, there has been the fear of the alternative. A new leader might do worse, possibly losing Quebec seats that are about the party’s only strength right now. A leadership race now could split the party over issues such as carbon taxes – or far more acrimoniously over the Middle East.
But there’s a bigger Liberal conundrum now, after that symbolic by-election. Mr. Trudeau’s reset button doesn’t seem to work. He has little to show for all those renewal strategies, apart from a new ambassador to Denmark.