Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems intent on going down with the Liberal ship when Canadians head to the polls in a federal election widely expected in October 2025.
With only 16 months to go, he doesn’t appear to have any other option.
For the Liberals, it’s clearly too late in the game to change party leaders. That train left the station last year when the party still had enough time to choose a new leader and attempt to rebrand itself before the next election. They are now stuck with Trudeau, whether they like it or not.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be the leader of Liberal Party when Canadians head to the polls in the next federal election, widely expected in October 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns
And so, the party will do battle next year against the federal Conservatives hamstrung, ethically-challenged and well behind in public opinion polls.
Choosing a new leader at this point wouldn’t change that. It would only spare Trudeau the humiliation of an almost certain defeat. Barring some disastrous development around the Conservative Party of Canada and their wily leader Pierre Poilievre, the Liberal’s fate in next year’s election is essentially sealed.
The reason Trudeau has stuck around as long as he has is because until about mid-2023, the Liberals were still within striking distance (around five percentage points) of the Conservatives in most polls. That changed markedly by the end of last summer when the gap started to widen rapidly. According to the most recent 338Canada data (a compilation of the country’s top polling results), the Liberals now trail the Conservatives by 18 percentage points — an insurmountable deficit by most historical accounts. That is not a one-month or two-month development. It’s a one-year trend that’s showing no signs of reversal.
This week’s stunning Liberal loss in a Toronto byelection is further evidence of the party’s demise. While caution should be used when trying to interpret the outcome of any byelection, losing what has been a historically safe Liberal seat in the Toronto area only added to Trudeau’s misery.
So the captain must go down with his ship.
It’s fitting, actually. Trudeau himself is the author of most of the Liberals’ misfortunes. His interference in a criminal prosecution during the SNC-Lavalin affair, which Canada’s ethics commissioner confirmed in 2019 was improper and violated prosecutorial independence, caused irreparable damage to the party. The Liberals were reduced to minority government status following that scandal, a position they never recovered from. There have been other ethical breaches by Trudeau and his cabinet before and after the SNC-Lavalin affair, all of which have painted the party in a less-than-desirable light.
Add in the Liberal government’s chronic deficit spending, record national debt, poor-to-mediocre economic performance and inability to make any headway on Canada’s housing crisis and it’s easy to see why the party has fallen so far behind in the polls.
Perhaps more importantly, by the time Canadians go to the polls, Trudeau will have been in power 10 years. It’s very difficult for any government to avoid a time-for-a-change dynamic after being in office that long. The desire for change took a foothold last summer (or earlier) and has continued unabated ever since. It would take a small miracle to turn that around over the next 16 months.
Which means it would be pointless for the Liberals to change leaders now.
Instead, the party will fight the next election on “what kind of country do Canadians want to live in?” They will attempt to sell the narrative that under the Liberals, Canada is a progressive, compassionate country that values social programs like a national dental plan, $10-a-day child care, and increased funding for medicare (initiatives that have so far failed to boost the Trudeau government’s political fortunes). And they will attempt to define the Poilievre Conservatives as mean-spirited and out-of-touch with “Canadian values,” who will unravel the country’s social safety net.
That strategy probably won’t work, whether Trudeau is the party leader or not.
Once the time-for-a-change dynamic is firmly in place, it’s almost impossible to reverse it. Most Canadians appear to have it in their minds that it’s time for a new government in Ottawa. And while many voters may not be enamoured with Poilievre and his brand of politics (some will never forget his association with the anti-vaxxer, anti-public health measures crowd during the COVID-19 pandemic), people don’t vote in new parties, they vote out incumbents when they’re tired of them.
Canadians are tired of the federal Liberals generally and of Trudeau specifically. A leadership change would do nothing to alter the outcome of the next election.
tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca
Tom Brodbeck
Columnist
Tom Brodbeck is a columnist with the Free Press and has over 30 years experience in print media. He joined the Free Press in 2019. Born and raised in Montreal, Tom graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and commerce. Read more about Tom.
Tom provides commentary and analysis on political and related issues at the municipal, provincial and federal level. His columns are built on research and coverage of local events. The Free Press’s editing team reviews Tom’s columns before they are posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press’s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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