Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and U.S. President Joe Biden stand together on the first day of the G7 summit, in Savelletri, Italy, on June 13.Yara Nardi/Reuters
Who does Justin Trudeau listen to? Who can tap him on the shoulder and tell him it might be time to go? That’s a question that came up among Liberals this summer.
In the U.S., a similar question was asked, with more urgency, about President Joe Biden. His halting debate performance in June has many Democrats fearing that if he is the party’s candidate, he will hand the presidency to Donald Trump. A series of private delegations of Democrats have reportedly sought to give him that message.
Isn’t this odd for advanced democracies in 2024? Major political parties are wondering where to find the shadowy figure who can whisper in the ear of the long-serving leader to convince them it is time to go.
Of course, this isn’t the stuff of autocratic nations. If Mr. Biden and Mr. Trudeau aren’t popular, voters can cast them out. They probably will.
In both cases, the people around the leaders would argue they had earned the right to run again. But in both cases, their parties are failing at what is arguably their responsibility: providing voters a viable option to be elected to govern.
Once, the Liberal Party was famous for internal rebellions, nearly chasing prime minister Jean Chrétien out when he was still on top of the polls. But the mechanisms for pushing out a Liberal prime minister were removed a generation ago. Now, like Democrats in the U.S., all that is left is public pressure or private persuasion.
The two cases are miles apart. Many think Mr. Biden is suffering serious cognitive decline. He’s up against a candidate, Mr. Trump, who sought to overturn the results of the last presidential election. Voters who don’t really want Mr. Trump as president might feel Mr. Biden is simply unfit.
In the U.S., the Democratic ticket is baked into the political system by law and convention. But in theory, there is a vetting of incumbents seeking re-election in primaries. But Mr. Biden made it through that stage before the shock of his debate performance.
None of that applies to Mr. Trudeau. He’s just unpopular. His Conservative opponent, Pierre Poilievre, has never tried to undo an election. He just has different political views. And if Canadian voters don’t like Mr. Poilievre or Mr. Trudeau, they could elect the NDP.
But in practice, Canadians tend to see the Liberal and Conservative parties as the two main options to govern. And now it appears many voters have ruled out a party led by Mr. Trudeau. The one Liberal MP who has publicly called for Mr. Trudeau to resign, New Brunswick’s Wayne Long, has argued the party needs to change leaders to offer a “viable” option.
The current crop of Liberal MPs doesn’t have much experience with rebellion. But there aren’t many ways to mount one now.
Once, Liberal prime ministers had to face a leadership review between elections. When Paul Martin’s supporters took over the party machinery in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it carried a real threat for Mr. Chrétien. If he had not announced in 2002 his plans to step down, he might have been rejected by his party.
But those rules were changed in 2005. Leadership reviews for prime ministers were dropped on the grounds that a prime minister who won a mandate from voters shouldn’t have it overruled by the party.
In the U.S., major Democratic donors have threatened to freeze Mr. Biden’s campaign funding. But there aren’t massive donors in Canadian federal politics anymore. There is no powerful group of donors pulling the purse strings who can threaten Mr. Trudeau. The political finance reforms of the early 2000s that eliminated corporate donations and set caps – now $1,725 – mean big parties need thousands of donors.
And Liberal MPs can’t remove Mr. Trudeau, except by voting to defeat his government. The Liberal caucus never adopted the section of the 2014 Reform Act that allows a caucus to remove a party leader.
All that makes pushing Mr. Trudeau a matter of convincing him to leave. But he seems to be working on another attempt at rebooting his government, so now Chrystia Freeland’s days as Finance Minister look numbered.
In Canada, as in the U.S, big political parties that play a major role in the political system find themselves without a lever to change a leader. They’re left searching for someone who can get the leader to listen.