Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference in Montreal on July 3.ANDREJ IVANOV/Getty Images
Justin Trudeau looked like a million bucks in a white shirt and a bright blue blazer as he made a funding announcement in his own Montreal riding in his usual energetic style.
Then he dodged a bunch of questions. Including the big one.
The reporters’ queries were almost all about the prickly concerns about his leadership coming from inside his own party. Some were so basic that it’s pretty startling that a sitting prime minister can’t answer them.
Will he meet with his MPs? After all, nine Liberal MPs penned a letter last week calling for an urgent, in-person meeting of the entire Liberal caucus. They warned the Liberals’ loss in the June 24 by-election in the party’s long-time stronghold of Toronto-St. Paul’s was a sign that Canadians aren’t listening anymore.
Yet Mr. Trudeau wouldn’t commit to meeting his own caucus. He smiled, but swivelled and skated his way around the question three times in a manner that suggested he’d prefer to dive into a sack of electric eels than meet his own MPs all at once. He’ll talk to some on the phone.
“Last week’s by-election loss, not to sugarcoat it, was challenging,” Mr. Trudeau said, sugarcoating it.
He said there’s “always a range of perspectives and voices within the Liberal Party and listening to all those voices and giving them time to engage is really, really, important,” but he obviously didn’t mean all, or least not all at once.
Mr. Trudeau did meet with some caucus representatives this week, however. What was his takeaway? His answer was a Liberal brochure: People are facing challenging times so the government is “stepping up” on things such as dental care, housing construction, a school food program and so on.
Are there members of his team that have asked him to go? Mr. Trudeau said he has had frank conversations but Liberals are focused on delivering.
There was a theme to Mr. Trudeau’s answers to questions about him: This is an important time.
“There is a challenge faced by democracies all around the world right now,” Mr. Trudeau said. He pointed to the rise of the far right in France, “the election in the United States,” widespread anxieties and what he called “an erosion of democratic principles and rights.”
“This is a really important time for governments to step up and deliver concretely for citizens, to restore and encourage faith in the institutions that are there to deliver things like more child care spaces, to deliver better access to dental care for people who don’t have insurance, to deliver more housing with the most ambitious housing plan this country has ever seen,” he said.”
But nothing about the big question Mr. Trudeau left hanging in the air: Why you?
Mr. Trudeau talked about the Liberal agenda, but didn’t answer the question about why he should lead. Some in his party now say he’s an obstacle, and he hasn’t answered.
His insistence that the political stakes are high is also the argument put forward by backers of U.S. President Joe Biden to Democrats appalled at the prospect that Donald Trump could be elected president again. But Democrats don’t have to be convinced of the importance of defeating Mr. Trump. They fear concerns about Mr. Biden’s age will make voters rule him out.
Mr. Biden’s halting performance in his debate with Mr. Trump and the Liberals by-election loss in Toronto-St. Paul’s have been shocks with similar effects. They have shaken some members of their own parties into feeling they can’t be trapped with a leader who they think is doomed to defeat.
The good news for Mr. Trudeau is that he doesn’t have prove he is hale and healthy despite his years. Still, you’d think he’d try to meet his caucus of Liberal MPs to soothe rebellious spirits.
Presumably, he’s dodging that out of concerns that some of those MPs are screwing up their courage to confront him after the recent by-election loss, and he’s better off not walking into a bear pit. Some Liberal MPs might not want to cancel their vacation plans to go to a caucus meeting, anyway. Maybe by September, the rebellious spirits will have cooled.
The big question his own party is asking is why he’s still the person to lead them, and Mr. Trudeau is dodging.
Campbell Clark