While voters may have tired of him, Trudeau looks forward to a ‘choice’ election

Standing by the docks in downtown Nanaimo, B.C., on Monday morning, Liberal MP Alexandre Mendes told Radio-Canada she came to this week’s Liberal caucus retreat with a message from her constituents: “dozens and dozens” of them were “adamant” the Liberal Party needed a new leader.

Speaking later to CBC’s Power & Politics, Mendes said it was hard to pinpoint a specific reason or issue to explain her constituents’ feelings for the prime minister.

“It’s a very generalized … ‘we’re tired of his face’ kind of thing,” she explained.

Mendes said she still personally supports Justin Trudeau and believes the government has done good things. But she felt compelled to convey what she was hearing from voters.

Short of resigning, there is likely not much Trudeau can do to directly counter this kind of generalized fatigue with his presence (or, more specifically, his face). But Trudeau evidently did not see this summer as a moment to announce his departure.

Despite immense speculation about change atop the Liberal government, the summer of 2024 has now come to an end with relatively limited adjustments — the most significant change being the arrival of former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, albeit in an advisory role.

The summer of 2023 was an angsty one for Liberals as well, but concern about the Liberal Party’s slide in the polls led to a “robust” discussion behind closed doors when the governing party’s MPs met in London, Ont.

A year later, the polls are no less bleak. But no such collective airing of grievances seems to have occurred in Nanaimo (Mendes’s comments notwithstanding).

In London, the Trudeau government had seemed eager to show that it was (however belatedly) doing new things, with the prime minister touting a flurry of new housing and affordability initiatives. In Nanaimo, there were no big or sudden moves. 

The lack of anything new or exciting to talk about is no doubt disappointing to the reporters and pundits paid to follow the Trudeau government. But there also probably isn’t anything Trudeau could have announced in Nanaimo — and no cabinet shuffle he could have executed this summer — that would have fundamentally altered the political reality facing his government. 

If Trudeau has chosen to stay on as leader and if Liberal MPs have chosen not to force him out, then the Liberals’ last best chance might be to soldier on and hope to present Canadians with a choice that is both clear and somehow favourable enough to ultimately overcome the electorate’s apparent exhaustion with Trudeau.

‘That’s the choice people are going to make’

It was the idea of a choice that Trudeau ultimately landed on at the end of his 10-minute appearance before reporters on Wednesday morning. Whatever the deficits of recent years, he argued that the federal government has the strongest balance sheet of any national government in the G7.

And Liberals, he said, “believe in putting that in service of Canadians by investing in them,” while Conservatives believe they can “create growth and opportunities through cutting programs Canadians are relying on.” 

“That’s the choice that people get to make in these upcoming byelections,” Trudeau said. “That’s the choice people are going to make next year, and I can’t wait to continue getting into it this fall with [Conservative Leader] Pierre Poilievre, whose perspective is cuts are the only way forward. Because I know that confident countries invest in their future, invest in their workers, invest in their people, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.” 

The Liberals’ argument about the party’s loss in Toronto–St. Paul’s is actually that voters weren’t facing a real choice — that the residents of that riding could safely elect a Conservative without having to worry about any direct impact on government policy. The Liberals may have to resurface that argument next week if they don’t win Monday’s byelection in the Montreal riding of LaSalle–Émard–Verdun.

In theory, a general election could still be months away, allowing for more time and space from the inflation and interest rate hikes that have frustrated Canadians and undermined their sense of security over the last two years. 

Before taking questions from reporters on Tuesday morning, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland volunteered to “highlight” that inflation was at a 40-month low, that the Bank of Canada had recently cut interest rates for the third time and that wages were continuing to outpace inflation. For good measure, she also reminded reporters of a previous boost to student aid and then announced a possible new round of tariffs on China.

Unsurprisingly, the first question posed to her was still about Mark Carney.

It’s hard to know what to make of Carney’s new role, and his fit alongside Freeland is potentially awkward. But his mere presence in the Trudeau government’s orbit might help to bolster its credibility on an issue — macroeconomics — that has never been Trudeau’s strongest suit. 

Trudeau talked about the economy himself on Wednesday, enthusing about foreign investment in Canada and his government’s efforts to build out a supply chain for electric vehicles. But he was most on the front foot when talking about programs like child care and the new dental care benefit that he says a Poilievre government would cut.

Have Canadians already made a choice?

Poilievre could try to shrink those differences by pledging to maintain those programs, but he has not shown much inclination to do so. The Liberals could also add to the number of things potentially at stake in an election by completing agreements with provinces to deliver pharmacare (specifically, contraception and diabetes treatment) and funding for school nutrition programs, while filling in the remaining gaps in their climate agenda.

WATCH | Liberal MP says party gathered to ‘set the best agenda’ for Canadians:

Liberals MPs discuss Trudeau’s future as caucus meets in Nanaimo

Liberal Atlantic caucus chair Kody Blois tells Power & Politics MPs have gathered to ‘set the best agenda’ moving forward for Canadians.

Of course, an election will be about more than just those things. On other issues — housing, crime, even opioid addiction — Poilievre’s Conservatives might reasonably feel they have a stronger hand. 

It’s also possible that Canadians have already made their choice. 

Even if every election is about the future, as incumbents, the Liberals might be unable to point to enough things in the present to justify another turn in office. Either way, they unquestionably need more things than their leader to point at.

“I think a lot of people, when they listen to Poilievre and the things that he says, eventually they’ll decide, ‘OK, maybe I don’t like Trudeau, but I really don’t like Poilievre,'” Marcus Powlowski, the Liberal MP for Thunder Bay–Rainy River, told a group of reporters on Wednesday. 

“The first time around, in 2015, he was this guy with good hair and he’s Trudeau and he has this kind of charisma…. if he’s going to win this election, it’s going to be on substance and who he is and his policies.” 

Powlowski made sure to add that he thinks Trudeau still has good hair.

“Yes, people are angry at Trudeau,” he said. “[But] when you look at the alternative, I think we don’t look so bad.”