A crushing loss is making Trudeau’s Liberals rethink the future

by now you’ve probably heard about the Liberals stunning loss in this week’s Toronto St Paul’s byelection they held the seat for the last 30 years until they lost it by a narrow 590 votes to the conservatives the defeat sends a loud message to the governing Federal liberals about their unpopularity prime minister Justin Trudeau said the results were not what his party had hoped for I want to be clear that I hear people’s concerns and frustrations these are not easy times and it’s clear that I and my entire liberal team have much more work to do to deliver tangible real progress that Canadians across the country can see and feel since the byelection there have been calls for Trudeau to step down as leader but Deputy Prime Minister chrisa Freeland says that’s not happening good afternoon MAA Walsh with the Global Mail um Deputy Prime Minister can the Prime Minister still stay on to lead the Liberal Party into the next election given that you just lost one of the safest seats in the entire country last night yes he certainly can the prime minister is committed to Leading us into the next election and he has our support today John ibbotson a columnist and reporter for the globe in Ottawa is on the show to talk about where the Liberals go from here as they enter the summer and what their unpopularity means for the conser conservatives and the NDP I’m Cheryl southernland and this is the decel from the glob in [Music] mail John great to be talking to you today great to be here so Parliament has risen for the summer and a lot of people were anticipating that the Liberals would win a byelection in Toronto and it just be kind of a regular sleepy political summer but that of course isn’t what happened um so I just want to know John what kind of Summer do they face now well for the Liberals it’s going to be an interesting and difficult summer yes they had hoped and expected to win the Toronto St Paul’s byelection it is a very safe liberal seat they had also hoped to arrest the decline in the polls that they’ve been experiencing for more than a year now about a 20 point spread between Pier pv’s conservatives and them so they were hoping mostly for stability but stability now is an elusive goal they lost St Paul’s byelection and that can only mean that there could be little or no increase in their support over the course of the summer there might even be a further decline in support over the course of the summer so for them right now the goal is to stop this seemingly Relentless decline in popularity in support and I suspect in morale as well and get back on track towards some kind of governing legislative and political agenda that can get them through the next year and a half until the election uh that’s expected in the fall of 2025 can we do a bit of a reality check here John because there’s been a lot of chatter about this one by-election seat and I mean I just want to know like how bad is it really because it was considered a safe seat but it is of course just one byelection after all so so why is there so much fuss over it I think it’s because the byelection confirms the polls polls themselves you know um are mostly reliable especially if several polls all go in the same direction and we’ve known since last summer that popular support for Mr pv’s Conservative has been steadily increasing they’re at or above 40% now in support and the liberal support has been decreasing they at around the low 20s in support and there’s you know endless number of columns written including by people like me um speculating on what all that means but on a bio eltion confirms all of that a byelection gives you real numbers and it’s especially uh true if the byelection is held in a writing that should have been a safe liberal win and that’s what St Paul’s was so you take the polls that we’ve been having over the last year or so and you take the results in St Paul’s and you go all right we can now certifiably say the Liberals are in deep trouble and something I I was hearing was that you know it’s kind of a message from not just voters but liberal voters telling the the Liberals something here yeah if you believe as as it has been the case that St Paul’s is a safe liberal seat has been since 1993 and if the writing goes conservative as it did in the byelection then that has to mean that some of the people who voted for Justin trudo’s liberals um in 2015 2019 2021 this time uh voted conservative sending a message to the party they used to support that they’re not supporting it now now then we begin the examination of why they’ve changed their mind what it is that has the unhappy um but the fact is we know that the St Paul’s result was in some cases liberals sending a message to the liberal government that they’re not liberals right now so knowing this what’s the next move for the Liberals this summer like how do they pick up and move on after this loss well after the byelection result Mr Trudeau said that it meant that his government had to work harder to try to build trust with Canadians but I don’t think it’s a question of working harder we’re not saying that he’s not putting enough hours in the day it’s a question of the agenda what is the governing agenda uh what is it the people in St Paul’s and elsewhere object to and what is the government going to do about that so does the government have to address the question of the very large deficits that it’s been running does it have to address the question of the carbon tax which is a signature policy but which is quite unpopular does it need to revisit the issue of the capital gains tax which they decided to increase what is it about their governing agenda that has Canadians so concerned and what can and should they do to change that agenda or can they change it at all what if it’s not about the agenda though like what if it’s about uh personality more than anything and that’s the real question isn’t were those voters in St Paul saying we don’t like the carbon tax we don’t like the deficits we don’t like this we don’t like that or were they saying we don’t like Justin Trudeau’s leader of the liberal party anymore that is a Frau question and a number of analysts have said this shows that Mr Trudeau really has a question whether he should carry on his leader whether he should step aside and let someone else take the the party into the next election but there was an Angus weed poll not that long ago that surveyed other potential candidates such as Mark Harney the former Governor of the Bank of Canada such as Finance Minister Christian Freeland such as foreign minister Millan but none of the candidates were any more popular than Mr Trudeau so yes maybe he should step aside and let someone else uh take the party into the next election hoping that that will increase Pop’s support or maybe he should stay take the loss and then you know give somebody else a chance to run for the leader after that loss mhm I want to do a bit of a rewind here because I I think weren’t the Liberals kind of in this period of self-evaluation and reflection last summer like there was this cabinet Shuffle that happened uh in July of last year and and it’s been quite some time now that people have been voicing their upset over the current government so what is different about this summer um of regrouping well I’m not sure what is different this summer you I mean you’re absolutely right the popularity of the government began to decline last summer uh they took steps cabinet Shuffle was the big one and they determined that they were going to arrest the slide and then start to rebuild they didn’t why didn’t they well the fundamentals haven’t changed interest rates are high inflation is high home ownership is increasingly unaffordable uh for younger people and that is what’s driving the unpopularity of the of the liberal party it’s not whether they this byelection or replace this minister with that cabinet minister the fundamentals of the economy are such that the the party is being blamed for the unaffordability of daily life so as we’ve talked about there’s a call for the prime minister to step down which he says he isn’t going to do even after these results um at the Toronto St Paul byelection but from what you know about how Justin trudel operates what do we know about why he wants to stay on I suspect Justin trudo wants to stay on for the same reason that step Harper wanted to stay on in 2015 back in 2015 uh Mr Harper had been in power for almost a decade the government was not that popular but stepen Harper believed that Justin Trudeau would be a disaster for Canada and that he was the only person who could stop him um he was wrong he could not stop him Justin Trudeau defeated him in the next election Justin Trudeau clearly believes that Pier poia would be a disaster for Canada um and that only he can stop him so I think that Mr Trudeau may suffer from the same hubris that Steven Harper suffered from and frankly that most politicians suffer from the belief that only they can be trusted to defeat the oncoming Menace that the opposition leader represents is there anyone that could convince at least Trudeau here is there anyone that could convince him that he should step aside sure you know if U Katie tford his most important Aid or Dominic LeBlanc Miller cabinet ministers who are close to the Prime Minister if they decided that they needed to have an intervention with the PM and sat him down and and talked to him and said I think for the good of the party uh you need to go he would listen to them in public at least though uh the cabinet is convinced that Mr trudo should stay and that they’re loyal to him you have to remember Justin trudo took a liberal party that was completely morban in 2013 broke dispirited in third place and brought it to government the party owes him a lot and the party is not going to turn on him no matter how bad the polls might be no matter how serious the defeat they suffered in torto St Paul’s might be they will stick with him to the end if he decides to go to the end so if not people are there other things that could force his hand I think if you saw a further deterioration in the polls if you saw for example the Liberals moving into third place behind the NDP if the fundraising dropped off uh seriously so that it was clear that fewer and fewer people supported the Liberals each month and fewer and fewer people were prepared to donate to the party each month that might get you to a point where people uh were sort of staring at the wall and going uh we’re doomed here it might and it might convince Mr Trudeau that he simply can’t pull this out and and he should step aside another thing that would worry Mr Trudeau is if he did see um a number of defections from caucus over the course of the summer you know if you are an MP in the 9005 the Suburban riding surrounding the city of Toronto or in the Lower Mainland um and you have won your rioting in the last three elections but you didn’t win by huge amounts um then you have to ask yourself if we can’t win in Toronto St Paul’s can we win in bton can we win in Peele can we win in Sera bernabe and the answer is probably not I’m probably about to be defeated what are you going to do about that are you going to decide to step down and spend more time with your family are you’re going to confront the prime minister in a phone call and say um Justin I’m toast unless you step aside these people again have some things to uh to think of it over the course of the summer and they’re going to be hearing from their constituents over the course of the summer as well they’re going to be telling them uh what it is they think are their chances and what what it is that concerns them and again those caucus members will be bringing that back to the PM so John you talked about how other possible leaders like Mark Carney or Melanie Jolie and others won’t really pull any better than Trudeau um so I’m just wondering then why would anyone want to step into that position when it seems like defeat is inevitable well um if you mark carne it’s a particularly fought question because Mr carne is not in caucus so he would have to run for the leadership win the leadership um win a seat and then possibly uh be defeated in the election and sit for the next four years um as leader of the opposition asking Pier PA of questions and that’s not something the former Governor of the Bank of Canada or the Bank of England uh might be expected to want to do if you’re already in caucus if you’re already a cabinet minister like uh FR pH champagne um or Nita or Meli well it might not be so bad you know leader of the opposition wouldn’t be the worst thing and you could spend uh those four years rebuilding the party rebuilding its finances and uh think to yourself well you know in four or six years I still could become Prime Minister of this country John you are a student one of our best students here at the globe of Canadian political history is there any example from the past that could show Justin Trudeau a way forward for this summer there aren’t any historical precedents that are encouraging there’s the case of his own father Pierre Trudeau who stepped aside took the famous walk in the snow uh so that John Turner could become leader of the liberal party but then John Turner took the party to what up until that point was his worst defeat in his history uh Brian when he was Progressive conservative prime minister was also deeply unpopular he stepped aside for Kim Campbell Kim Campbell took the party to two seats in the next federal election indeed Justin Trudeau could decide that he wants to stay on only because the president in the past of leader stepping aside has not been encouraging that said I’m not aware of any case at the federal level where a governing party was 20 points down in the polls a year and a half before a federal election and then came back to win that election it’s an incredibly Steep Hill to climb and as far as I know no governing political leader has ever climbed it we’ll be right back all right John so we’ve covered the summer ahead for the Liberals but what about the conservatives what is their playbook after this win in the byelection in Toronto well the current Playbook is working for them just fine so there’s no real need for them to change it again they’ll be going out to the writings talking to people hearing what their concerns are I think we can expect to see Mr PV on the road getting ready again for the fall session but I don’t think at this point the conservatives are going to want to change much of anything it’s working for them really really well I’m guessing that the conservatives will probably want to go to the polls sooner rather than later yes um if you know the polls say if an election were held tomorrow and the conservatives would say please can we have that election tomorrow um they would like to see an election as soon as possible I suspect they would also like to see uh Justin tle stay he’s a known quantity they have the strategies in place to fight him uh in the fall and in the spring and in the next election so they I think want Justin trudel to stay as much as Justin Trudeau wants Justin trudo to say if indeed that’s what Justin Trudeau wants interesting um one of the strategies we saw in that byelection in Toronto is that the Conservative candidate who won Don Stewart didn’t do much media to get his name out there what does that tell you about how the conservatives may be thinking about strategy for a general election conservatives generally are not that friendly with the media Steven Harper was hardly a pal of the press gallery and Pier PV not only doesn’t do a lot of media he can of to be quite antagonistic toward supporters so it’s not surprising that they kept their candidate Under Wraps during the byelection and they’ll probably be keeping everybody under wraps up until and during the next federal election as well the conservatives especially because they have so much money um the best policy for them appears to be doing uh local media so-called ethnic media social media uh and avoiding the big press and the big broadcasters you know we know that uh in urban centers and especially Toronto are big liberal strongholds but if Pierre poer is going to make a case to Urban voters in big cities who may be fed up with Trudeau as perhaps we’ve saw at the in the byelection um what is that case the case for voters in downtown Toronto as it turns out is exactly the same as the case for voters in Suburban ridings and in rural ridings prices are too high interest rates are too high uh your kid can’t uh get a home and the uh liberals uh simply wanted to focus on reducing carbon emissions and that’s simplistic and exaggerated but that’s often what political messages are and I don’t think there’s any reason the conservatives would change that message and Toronto Paul suggests that message May resonate with with voters even in the so-called Progressive Elites of the city centers is there a sense of the conservatives might put more focus into these areas I mean I I’m just thinking about my writing in Toronto and like I I barely saw the conservative uh campaigning the last election um I’m just wondering could we possibly see more of this kind of focus for the conservatives going into these areas yeah it’s going to be a very interesting question for Mr Paul EV and for his strategists my hunch is that the conservative will keep their original strategy of focusing on places like um Suburban Toronto and Suburban Vancouver but they might push a few more dollars because they have a lot of dollars to spend um at least into the outer downtown writings such as eggington Lawrence they’re not going to put all of their eggs in the basket of winning Toronto Center uh but they might pay Toronto Center a little bit more attention than they did in the past interesting so what about the NDP then wouldn’t it uh make sense for the NDP to focus on these writings yeah and as um some of my colleagues have at the Gold mail have said in some ways it was a worse result for the NDP than it was for the Liberals uh they did very poorly in this writing and Jun Singh must be asking himself having created this Supply and confidence agreement with the Liberals having sustained this liberal government now uh for three years what does he have to show for it he has some policy gains to show for it there is far care there is Dental Care those were high NDP priorities and they can say to voters look we got these things for you but voters seem to be angry at the big government spending they seem to be angry at the lack of concern over their core issues and they seem to be blaming the NDP along with the Liberals for those challenges uh it must be disconcerting for Mr Singh that he is not profiting from the decline in in the support of the liberal party instead he’s bading support to the conservatives as well as the Liberals and that’s not something anybody expected yeah so what is the case that jug beat Singh and the NDP need to make to Progressive voters I think jug beat Singh needs to make two points to Progressive voters first if you are progressive I got you the things that you should most support and value like pharmacare like dental care that was the result of this supplying confidence agreement and you should reward the NDP for going into it secondly there is no chance for Justin Trudeau to win the next election so the old case of a vote for the NDP is really a vote for the conservatives no longer apply you should think about switching your vote from the Liberals to the NP because the NP might very well become the official opposition and would be a better choice to confront Pier PV in the next Parliament and what about the young voters John because they are often thought of as Progressive votes to get and in fact Trudeau really appealed to them and won their votes when he first won in 2015 are the Liberals going to go after this segment again the most worrying thing if you are a liberal strategist or politician is the fact that you’re losing the youth vote you’re right Millennials and gen Zeds these are the people who brought the Liberals to power and and sustain them power but the polls show the younger voters are now more likely to vote conservative than they are to vote for the liberals or the NDP these are the voters who can’t afford to buy a house who can’t afford rent they are the ones who now are angrier than anybody else and they are the ones more likely to go to the conservatives than anyone else that is a sea change in Canadian politics and frankly one that I never thought I would see so John just to end what does a successful summer look like for the Liberals I think a successful summer for the Liberals is one in which things don’t get any worse and that’s a very low bar but at this point hoping for some kind of improvement in in Liberal fortunes Improvement in the polls Improvement in fundraising that’s just not realistic what’s realistic for them is that things stabilize gives them some kind of Base to work with when they come back in the fall and then a successful summer is one in which they think think through what it is they’re going to do in the fall what they’re going to bring to Parliament to regain uh public support and Trust uh to uh an agenda that they can take to voters um in the new year or in next fall whenever the next federal election might be a successful summer is one in which the Liberals regroup and plan how to recover from the depths that they currently find themselves in and then what about Justin Trudeau what has to happen for him to have a positive summer well I think Justin shoter should just go and surf um you know recharge I suspect he’s going to be on the phone a lot at to caucus members and cabinet members over the course of the summer taking the temperature of the party and maybe he does want to go to a cottage sometime with three or four of his closest friends uh and just sort of sit back and have a beer or two and think through what’s likely to happen in the months ahead and what he should do John always great to get your insights thanks again for coming on the show chal was my pleasure [Music] that’s it for today I’m Cheryl southernland our intern is Kelsey arnet our producers are meline white and Rachel Levy mclaughin David Crosby edits a show Adrien Chung is our senior producer and Matt frer is our managing editor thanks so much for listening

Justin Trudeau and the Liberals appear to be in big trouble. Following a stunning loss in the Toronto-St. Paul’s by-election to the Conservatives – a riding they’ve held handily for the last 30 years – the federal government is at risk of losing big in the next federal election, currently set for October 2025. As the Liberals grapple with where to go from here, Prime Minister Trudeau also faces questions about whether he’s still the best leader for the party.

John Ibbitson is a reporter and columnist in The Globe’s Ottawa bureau and has been covering federal politics for decades. He joins the show to discuss the Liberal’s potential summer strategy, how it compares to the Conservative’s approach and any signs of Trudeau’s resignation.

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