With each subsequent loss and the absolute lack of giving a fuck, the Liberal leadership validates the accusations against them - that they are somehow simultaneously elitist, stupid, in a bubble, and only concerned about maximizing their personal status/years of pensionable service.
All true. But your last sentence "if" says it all. He doesn't care more for the country than his vanity. To resign would shatter his messianic self image.
Well, that is not going to happen. Trudeau will stay till the bitter end. If Trudeau now resigns it is the same as Singh’s capitulation on the carbon tax. Nobody voted for new leader X, let’s have an election immediately and let the new leader show what he/she is made of. There would be no time to get ready. And by the way, the Liberals could face an election any time in the next 13 months. Trudeau is going to stay and given the circumstances it is the best (least bad) option for the Liberals.
Changing leaders right now also does nothing to change the fundamental issues that the Liberals are dealing with. As long as they get blamed for the misdeeds of provincial premiers, they will have a hard time with any leader. As long as Poilievre can get away with presenting “verb the noun” policies, there is nothing to contrast to. As long as Poilievre can be a dick in press conference and interviews without penalty, it will never be a level playing field in the press.
If the Liberals want to win the next election (or minimize the loss), they need to work on these issues.
They refuse to fight, which should be the easiest game with PP the fascist sewer rat and Singh the New Age Yoga instructor as your opposition. Instead, they are incompetent. They only do taxes, subsidies, and block grants. They routinely propose weak sauce social programs that they hand-off to the provinces, who fail to implement and run effectively. The public then blames the liberals when things don't work.
Why do they spend so much time propping up their enemy; which is Doug Ford, Francois LeGault, and Dannielle Smith? Simple, they don't want to fight, but advance corporate agenda, like adopting Stephen Harper's TPP and CETA. Who asked for that? Who asked for an oil pipeline to the Pacific? Let Alberta pay for it. Who asked for them to keep propping up Big Pharma and the 2nd highest pharmaceutical costs in the world?
Having a new leader or team isn't going to change the fact that this is a party of cowards, who have let themselves be railroaded by the fascists. They let housing and immigration get out of hand. They let foreign (and exploited) students flood the market to be used as cheap (and disposable) labour for big businesses. They let refugees swarm the border, while Canadians (perceptually) go without affordable homes and healthcare providers. They refused for years to address incipient fascism. They let PP & Co. turn Ottawa into an occupation. Everyone knows foreign interests are playing us, but they sat on their hands stupid as usual. How hard is it to say genocide is happening and it is wrong? Maybe a guy named Bronfman, who is your chief fundraiser, might have something to do with it?
There is no hope for these losers. Biden was a mentally challenged geriatric who was barely alive. What is Trudeau's excuse? Divorce? Where is the vision? Where is the fight? Where is the plan? Nothing but mealy mouthed platitudes.
Well, Neil, the reason that the programs that you mention did not get rousing send offs from the provinces are legion; let me list just a few:
- the LPC put together the "programs" with no consultation from the provinces so the "programs" don't fit all provinces, no matter the potential ideological differences (be polite, Neil, people are legally allowed to have different opinions - or do you disagree?)
- the "programs" are simply sad simulacrums of what is "necessary" - assuming that you buy the LPC rhetoric - and they simply don't do "enough" - again, if you buy the rhetoric
- money, money, money - the feds say they will fund X% but, really, who believes that? One only has to look at the history of medicare to see that that program has become such a drain on provincial resources with the feds cutting funding, changing rules, (God damned Canada Health Act!) and handcuffing the provinces from any real innovation
- and on, and on, and on
So, by all means blame the provinces but the reality is the the feds have tried to sell various programs that they (the feds) had no legal right to sell under the constitutional allocation of powers and have used publicity and the federal chequebook to kinda persuade provinces except the provinces are getting smarter, just as perhaps, perhaps the electorate is.
And, oh yeah: I support Danielle Smith so go ahead and deny everything that I have said. Your funeral. And that of the LPC.
Your argument about implementation is the same as mine. Poor policies, weak implementation, and a pathological inclination of both provinces and the federal government to not create robust programs that will fully address healthcare, education, and climate mitigation. I agree, let the province sink or swim. Unfortunately, they are consistently run by dunces: Jason Kenney no post-secondary degree; Doug Ford dropped out of community college after one semester; Christy Clark no post-secondary degree.
Where is Canada's innovation? Your answer implicitly exposes the less government, less taxes mindset of Canadians who want to be court jesters of either the Americans or as it is now with the Conservatives, Russia or China. Why don't our allies demand we spend 5% on R&D or prevent poverty or eliminate homelessness? Instead NATO wants us to spend 2% of GDP preparing to fight another European war. We are spending more than France, Italy, and Spain on Ukraine. How about they STFU.
RE: "money, money, money"
Provinces can tax too. They refuse to do so, then cry foul. Alberta simply has to say no to Ottawa's money. Instead, they pretend that they don't run all the important files and Ottawa is responsible for everything. Have you lived in the USA? Lower standard of living, lower life expectancy, routine bankruptcy from medical debt, unaffordable education, unaffordable housing (but cheaper than Canada), hyperviolence, and women dying from not being able to access abortions. Great model to emulate.
RE: "the provinces are getting smarter, just as perhaps, perhaps the electorate is."
The masses are idiots. They always have been thickos with little understanding of history, philosophy, public policy, economics, or science. Harper gagged scientists, put a creationist as science minister, destroyed scientific libraries, and hobbled statistics Canada. That's what Stalin did too: force science to conform with ideology. Did you condemn that?
The US now has a GDP per capita 1/3rd larger than Canada. Obamacare means that 90%+ of Americans have access to health care superior to the failed Canadian "super monopoly" model. Unaffordable education, agreed, but their students have access to superior grants and scholarships, along with the GI Bill. (Serve and you don't have to pay for a 4 year degree at a state school). Hyperviolence? We are getting there. But we do have access to MAID and abortions on demand so we are more virtuous nevertheless. Plus, US demographics are much healthier than Canada's.
No, the US is cleaning our clock economically which means they will be able to clean our clock socially pretty soon.
Part of the anger towards Trudeau is also anger at the RCMP for not dealing with the crime spree that gripped hold of Justin and his thieving and foreign-infiltrated entourage in the caucus and throughout the upper echelons of the bureaucracy. Under Trudeau the rule of law has become a sad farce in Canada and the RCMP shares heavily in the disgrace. Many Canadians properly believe that Trudeau Jr. properly belongs in jail along with some of the law enforcement officers that have betrayed Canada by giving the Trudeau such ample license to commit many crimes.
Trudeau's political execution of former Attorney-General Jody Raybould-Wilson for standing firm on the SNC-Lavelin stinky criminal mess began a disgusting pattern. The former LaSalle MP and Attorney-Genera,l David Lametti, came to embody the contempt for Canada's rule of law in his infiltration of the judiciary to make the Charter "moot." Let the investigations begin.
I have said it before, and I will say it again. I am convinced that the Liberals have decided to let JT take the loss and then rebuild. This might be the right strategy. I am hoping for an election sooner than later, a new Liberal leader (and maybe a new NDP leader as well), a one term CPC majority wherein Canadians discover that the CPC has no clue how to govern, and then the election of a new government which takes climate change seriously. I hope PP doesn't do too much damage while in office, and the loss of another 4 - 5 years to right the ship does not sink Canada
that sounds suspiciously like the strategy of the Ontario Liberal party in 2018. How is that working out?
it is pure LPC arrogance to believe that a taste of conservative governance will bring voters back to the LPC. Very few conservative PMs have been elected to only a single term.
Rebuild from what? If this swing holds up, after the next they won’t have even 100 elected positions across the country, including provincial seats. That’s a pretty shallow pool to rebuild from. The loss in staffers and potential leadership contenders will be felt. Not to mention how regionalized they will be, with maybe a dozen representatives of any sort west of Ontario
Look what’s happened to any of the provincial Liberal parties in the last couple decades after big losses. I honestly think fighting to retain as many seats as possible is an existential choice for the Federal Liberals
LaSalle—Émard—Verdun had a 40% turnout, and the Liberals lost by more than 200 votes, in about as close to the three way race as you can get. Less than 400 votes from coming in third. At least use accurate numbers in your copium
All the recent by elections have had extremely high turnouts, for by elections, and massive swings against the Liberals. People are actively and enthusiastically turning up for the opportunity to vote for anyone else
Face it. It was a Liberal stronghold. It is no longer. No excuses for it, except that Trudeau has damaged the Liberal name and party. It will be a long road to recovery. BTW, the voter trunout for the by-election was about 40% which is actually pretty damn good.
You’re right it’s not a stronghold, but bloc got 28%, Lib over 27% and Ndp 26%. That’s almost 90% in total. The new MP represents all these people,e not just 28%. They all need to work together and thankfully, the CPC got around only 10%.
Ryan, yes I misread and you are right. But the numbers are very close. It shows how much progressives need to work together.
It WAS a stronghold for years - it isn't now. That's the point, not the election outcome. They won with a popular vote in the mid-40's the last 3 - this time they're down to 28%.
I'm utterly convinced that most of the PMO don't care because they are already working on getting their next gig after this one, and it isn't in Canada.
Their actions show they are more concerned with how the Democrats in the US are doing than how the Liberals, or Canada is doing. Include Labour in the UK as well. Especially in this era of work from home, the last thing holding them back, actually having to move to the US or UK, isn't a concern. Chrystia Freeland can move back to NYC and the PMO can work for Beltway think-tanks.
The chattering class left is utterly obsessed with the US, and Canadian leftist criticism has for decades shouldn't more like resentment of being ignored, and "if you don't care, I don't care" self lying. Why should this be any different?
Eloquent but pointless. The Face Painter is in charge. Period.
As I understand matters (and, probably I don't because I am highly allergic to concentrating on that toxic institution known as the LPC), unlike the CPC, the LPC doesn't have a mechanism to allow the Parliamentary caucus to force a vote on the leadership of the Party. There is certainly the "ability" [notional? fictional?] of the caucus and/or the membership to try to "persuade" the Face Painter to leave. But if he chooses to resist then I suppose that all that is left is for sufficient numbers of the Parliamentary caucus to choose to sit as "independents" [sure; that would definitely happen!] so that the Face Painter loses the "confidence" of the House, thereby forcing an election.
You may wish to speculate on (non) likelihood of that course of (in) action.
Even in criticizing Trudeau, you can't stop yourself from wasting a large amount of your venom on Singh and the NDP. Not really your problem, and it just comes off as self-serving to denigrate the party you will be fighting for anti-PP votes with. In addition, all of your criticisms of them in the beginning of your piece are equally true of the Liberals and Trudeau in 2019 and 2021 - in many ways it is far worse for the liberals, since NDP supporters know they aren't going to win government. After the 2019 and 2021 elections liberals should have seen the writing on the wall at least as clearly, but they chose to do nothing, leading to where they (and we) are now.
LPC supporters allowed the party to become completed subordinate to the cult of personality that was built around Trudeau. Regardless of whether you love him or hate him, that should have been stopped early to maintain the party identity. Instead, supporters flooded social media with pro-Trudeau messages and hashtags (is there anything less politically serious that someone who honestly included a hashtag of "IstandwithTrudeau" in their message or bio on twitter?), making the LPC an afterthought. the party, along with cabinet and the caucus (which didn't vote to apply the reform act provisions to themselves, of course) seemed happy to let Trudeau become their identity, rather than the LPC. Trudeau, in turn, seemed happy to keep all of the power that Harper had centralized into the PMO (even though Trudeau had been critical of it when in opposition).
it is simply too late now - the LPC needed to have the conversation about a successor to Trudeau on September 21, 2021. It was clear then that he would never again win an election, let alone a majority government, but the LPC, caucus and cabinet sat on their hands, and decided that the Trudeau cult of personality was in charge. The LPC is going to reap the results of that decision for the next 2 or 3 elections, and none of the programs Trudeau implemented (and Singh supported) will likely survive as a result.
Progressives like to state that capitalists, and business people generally, are motivated by the profit motive. But they should add that many politicians are motivated by the power motive. Certainly seems to apply to a certain Prime Minister.
Mr. Trudeau clearly loves to fight -- Patrick Brazeau. Stephen Harper, and now Pierre Poilievre. The aggressiveness is visceral. Perhaps an excess of testosterone?
As an NDP supporter who can see the damage Singh is doing to the party, and knows that every day Singh stays on is another day's worth of damage that'll have to be repaired once he's gone, I feel your pain about Trudeau and the Liberals. It's virtually impossible to remove a party leader from the grassroots as I'm sure you know; it requires either a caucus revolt or staffer revolt - and in both parties the caucuses are too scared, and the staffers too focused on their own self-interest to do anything (not realizing, or not caring, that once the parties collapse after the next election, donor money and parliamentary budgets will dry up and many of them will end up having to find new jobs anyway). I decided not to attend the last NDP convention because I 1) figured it wasn't worth $1,000 to go just to vote against Singh's leadership and 2) know that the party isn't bound by any of the decisions or policies that are passed anyway. The damage by Trudeau staying on isn't just in polling or seat counts, it's in the alienation of the volunteer base that the Liberals rely on to offset the Conservatives' massive fundraising edge (same goes for the NDP). It's infinitely harder to convince a volunteer or party member to come back than it is to keep them happy while they're still involved. It's devastating to see the damage such a small number of leaders and high-ranking people can have on these parties by insisting on the status quo.
history has a number of examples of children who ran for power to prove something to their father who did not think much of them. that powerful and irrational drive will not be stopped by facts or reason. what this is exposing is the personal calculus of the other cabinet members. they are in this for themselves, not us.
With each subsequent loss and the absolute lack of giving a fuck, the Liberal leadership validates the accusations against them - that they are somehow simultaneously elitist, stupid, in a bubble, and only concerned about maximizing their personal status/years of pensionable service.
You mean featherbedding selfish placeholders? Agreed.
All true. But your last sentence "if" says it all. He doesn't care more for the country than his vanity. To resign would shatter his messianic self image.
Well, that is not going to happen. Trudeau will stay till the bitter end. If Trudeau now resigns it is the same as Singh’s capitulation on the carbon tax. Nobody voted for new leader X, let’s have an election immediately and let the new leader show what he/she is made of. There would be no time to get ready. And by the way, the Liberals could face an election any time in the next 13 months. Trudeau is going to stay and given the circumstances it is the best (least bad) option for the Liberals.
Changing leaders right now also does nothing to change the fundamental issues that the Liberals are dealing with. As long as they get blamed for the misdeeds of provincial premiers, they will have a hard time with any leader. As long as Poilievre can get away with presenting “verb the noun” policies, there is nothing to contrast to. As long as Poilievre can be a dick in press conference and interviews without penalty, it will never be a level playing field in the press.
If the Liberals want to win the next election (or minimize the loss), they need to work on these issues.
They refuse to fight, which should be the easiest game with PP the fascist sewer rat and Singh the New Age Yoga instructor as your opposition. Instead, they are incompetent. They only do taxes, subsidies, and block grants. They routinely propose weak sauce social programs that they hand-off to the provinces, who fail to implement and run effectively. The public then blames the liberals when things don't work.
Why do they spend so much time propping up their enemy; which is Doug Ford, Francois LeGault, and Dannielle Smith? Simple, they don't want to fight, but advance corporate agenda, like adopting Stephen Harper's TPP and CETA. Who asked for that? Who asked for an oil pipeline to the Pacific? Let Alberta pay for it. Who asked for them to keep propping up Big Pharma and the 2nd highest pharmaceutical costs in the world?
Having a new leader or team isn't going to change the fact that this is a party of cowards, who have let themselves be railroaded by the fascists. They let housing and immigration get out of hand. They let foreign (and exploited) students flood the market to be used as cheap (and disposable) labour for big businesses. They let refugees swarm the border, while Canadians (perceptually) go without affordable homes and healthcare providers. They refused for years to address incipient fascism. They let PP & Co. turn Ottawa into an occupation. Everyone knows foreign interests are playing us, but they sat on their hands stupid as usual. How hard is it to say genocide is happening and it is wrong? Maybe a guy named Bronfman, who is your chief fundraiser, might have something to do with it?
There is no hope for these losers. Biden was a mentally challenged geriatric who was barely alive. What is Trudeau's excuse? Divorce? Where is the vision? Where is the fight? Where is the plan? Nothing but mealy mouthed platitudes.
Well, Neil, the reason that the programs that you mention did not get rousing send offs from the provinces are legion; let me list just a few:
- the LPC put together the "programs" with no consultation from the provinces so the "programs" don't fit all provinces, no matter the potential ideological differences (be polite, Neil, people are legally allowed to have different opinions - or do you disagree?)
- the "programs" are simply sad simulacrums of what is "necessary" - assuming that you buy the LPC rhetoric - and they simply don't do "enough" - again, if you buy the rhetoric
- money, money, money - the feds say they will fund X% but, really, who believes that? One only has to look at the history of medicare to see that that program has become such a drain on provincial resources with the feds cutting funding, changing rules, (God damned Canada Health Act!) and handcuffing the provinces from any real innovation
- and on, and on, and on
So, by all means blame the provinces but the reality is the the feds have tried to sell various programs that they (the feds) had no legal right to sell under the constitutional allocation of powers and have used publicity and the federal chequebook to kinda persuade provinces except the provinces are getting smarter, just as perhaps, perhaps the electorate is.
And, oh yeah: I support Danielle Smith so go ahead and deny everything that I have said. Your funeral. And that of the LPC.
Your argument about implementation is the same as mine. Poor policies, weak implementation, and a pathological inclination of both provinces and the federal government to not create robust programs that will fully address healthcare, education, and climate mitigation. I agree, let the province sink or swim. Unfortunately, they are consistently run by dunces: Jason Kenney no post-secondary degree; Doug Ford dropped out of community college after one semester; Christy Clark no post-secondary degree.
Where is Canada's innovation? Your answer implicitly exposes the less government, less taxes mindset of Canadians who want to be court jesters of either the Americans or as it is now with the Conservatives, Russia or China. Why don't our allies demand we spend 5% on R&D or prevent poverty or eliminate homelessness? Instead NATO wants us to spend 2% of GDP preparing to fight another European war. We are spending more than France, Italy, and Spain on Ukraine. How about they STFU.
RE: "money, money, money"
Provinces can tax too. They refuse to do so, then cry foul. Alberta simply has to say no to Ottawa's money. Instead, they pretend that they don't run all the important files and Ottawa is responsible for everything. Have you lived in the USA? Lower standard of living, lower life expectancy, routine bankruptcy from medical debt, unaffordable education, unaffordable housing (but cheaper than Canada), hyperviolence, and women dying from not being able to access abortions. Great model to emulate.
RE: "the provinces are getting smarter, just as perhaps, perhaps the electorate is."
The masses are idiots. They always have been thickos with little understanding of history, philosophy, public policy, economics, or science. Harper gagged scientists, put a creationist as science minister, destroyed scientific libraries, and hobbled statistics Canada. That's what Stalin did too: force science to conform with ideology. Did you condemn that?
The US now has a GDP per capita 1/3rd larger than Canada. Obamacare means that 90%+ of Americans have access to health care superior to the failed Canadian "super monopoly" model. Unaffordable education, agreed, but their students have access to superior grants and scholarships, along with the GI Bill. (Serve and you don't have to pay for a 4 year degree at a state school). Hyperviolence? We are getting there. But we do have access to MAID and abortions on demand so we are more virtuous nevertheless. Plus, US demographics are much healthier than Canada's.
No, the US is cleaning our clock economically which means they will be able to clean our clock socially pretty soon.
Part of the anger towards Trudeau is also anger at the RCMP for not dealing with the crime spree that gripped hold of Justin and his thieving and foreign-infiltrated entourage in the caucus and throughout the upper echelons of the bureaucracy. Under Trudeau the rule of law has become a sad farce in Canada and the RCMP shares heavily in the disgrace. Many Canadians properly believe that Trudeau Jr. properly belongs in jail along with some of the law enforcement officers that have betrayed Canada by giving the Trudeau such ample license to commit many crimes.
Trudeau's political execution of former Attorney-General Jody Raybould-Wilson for standing firm on the SNC-Lavelin stinky criminal mess began a disgusting pattern. The former LaSalle MP and Attorney-Genera,l David Lametti, came to embody the contempt for Canada's rule of law in his infiltration of the judiciary to make the Charter "moot." Let the investigations begin.
I have said it before, and I will say it again. I am convinced that the Liberals have decided to let JT take the loss and then rebuild. This might be the right strategy. I am hoping for an election sooner than later, a new Liberal leader (and maybe a new NDP leader as well), a one term CPC majority wherein Canadians discover that the CPC has no clue how to govern, and then the election of a new government which takes climate change seriously. I hope PP doesn't do too much damage while in office, and the loss of another 4 - 5 years to right the ship does not sink Canada
that sounds suspiciously like the strategy of the Ontario Liberal party in 2018. How is that working out?
it is pure LPC arrogance to believe that a taste of conservative governance will bring voters back to the LPC. Very few conservative PMs have been elected to only a single term.
Rebuild from what? If this swing holds up, after the next they won’t have even 100 elected positions across the country, including provincial seats. That’s a pretty shallow pool to rebuild from. The loss in staffers and potential leadership contenders will be felt. Not to mention how regionalized they will be, with maybe a dozen representatives of any sort west of Ontario
Look what’s happened to any of the provincial Liberal parties in the last couple decades after big losses. I honestly think fighting to retain as many seats as possible is an existential choice for the Federal Liberals
The Lib lost by just a little over 100 votes in a byelection where less than 30% of the electorate showed up. It is not the end of the world.
LaSalle—Émard—Verdun had a 40% turnout, and the Liberals lost by more than 200 votes, in about as close to the three way race as you can get. Less than 400 votes from coming in third. At least use accurate numbers in your copium
All the recent by elections have had extremely high turnouts, for by elections, and massive swings against the Liberals. People are actively and enthusiastically turning up for the opportunity to vote for anyone else
Face it. It was a Liberal stronghold. It is no longer. No excuses for it, except that Trudeau has damaged the Liberal name and party. It will be a long road to recovery. BTW, the voter trunout for the by-election was about 40% which is actually pretty damn good.
Losing Lasalle is like the Conservatives losing Calgary West Hills. It's a shot at the core.
You’re right it’s not a stronghold, but bloc got 28%, Lib over 27% and Ndp 26%. That’s almost 90% in total. The new MP represents all these people,e not just 28%. They all need to work together and thankfully, the CPC got around only 10%.
Ryan, yes I misread and you are right. But the numbers are very close. It shows how much progressives need to work together.
It WAS a stronghold for years - it isn't now. That's the point, not the election outcome. They won with a popular vote in the mid-40's the last 3 - this time they're down to 28%.
I'm utterly convinced that most of the PMO don't care because they are already working on getting their next gig after this one, and it isn't in Canada.
Their actions show they are more concerned with how the Democrats in the US are doing than how the Liberals, or Canada is doing. Include Labour in the UK as well. Especially in this era of work from home, the last thing holding them back, actually having to move to the US or UK, isn't a concern. Chrystia Freeland can move back to NYC and the PMO can work for Beltway think-tanks.
The chattering class left is utterly obsessed with the US, and Canadian leftist criticism has for decades shouldn't more like resentment of being ignored, and "if you don't care, I don't care" self lying. Why should this be any different?
Hmmmmm ......
Eloquent but pointless. The Face Painter is in charge. Period.
As I understand matters (and, probably I don't because I am highly allergic to concentrating on that toxic institution known as the LPC), unlike the CPC, the LPC doesn't have a mechanism to allow the Parliamentary caucus to force a vote on the leadership of the Party. There is certainly the "ability" [notional? fictional?] of the caucus and/or the membership to try to "persuade" the Face Painter to leave. But if he chooses to resist then I suppose that all that is left is for sufficient numbers of the Parliamentary caucus to choose to sit as "independents" [sure; that would definitely happen!] so that the Face Painter loses the "confidence" of the House, thereby forcing an election.
You may wish to speculate on (non) likelihood of that course of (in) action.
Even in criticizing Trudeau, you can't stop yourself from wasting a large amount of your venom on Singh and the NDP. Not really your problem, and it just comes off as self-serving to denigrate the party you will be fighting for anti-PP votes with. In addition, all of your criticisms of them in the beginning of your piece are equally true of the Liberals and Trudeau in 2019 and 2021 - in many ways it is far worse for the liberals, since NDP supporters know they aren't going to win government. After the 2019 and 2021 elections liberals should have seen the writing on the wall at least as clearly, but they chose to do nothing, leading to where they (and we) are now.
LPC supporters allowed the party to become completed subordinate to the cult of personality that was built around Trudeau. Regardless of whether you love him or hate him, that should have been stopped early to maintain the party identity. Instead, supporters flooded social media with pro-Trudeau messages and hashtags (is there anything less politically serious that someone who honestly included a hashtag of "IstandwithTrudeau" in their message or bio on twitter?), making the LPC an afterthought. the party, along with cabinet and the caucus (which didn't vote to apply the reform act provisions to themselves, of course) seemed happy to let Trudeau become their identity, rather than the LPC. Trudeau, in turn, seemed happy to keep all of the power that Harper had centralized into the PMO (even though Trudeau had been critical of it when in opposition).
it is simply too late now - the LPC needed to have the conversation about a successor to Trudeau on September 21, 2021. It was clear then that he would never again win an election, let alone a majority government, but the LPC, caucus and cabinet sat on their hands, and decided that the Trudeau cult of personality was in charge. The LPC is going to reap the results of that decision for the next 2 or 3 elections, and none of the programs Trudeau implemented (and Singh supported) will likely survive as a result.
Both Trudeau and Singh need flushing.
Progressives like to state that capitalists, and business people generally, are motivated by the profit motive. But they should add that many politicians are motivated by the power motive. Certainly seems to apply to a certain Prime Minister.
Mr. Trudeau clearly loves to fight -- Patrick Brazeau. Stephen Harper, and now Pierre Poilievre. The aggressiveness is visceral. Perhaps an excess of testosterone?
As an NDP supporter who can see the damage Singh is doing to the party, and knows that every day Singh stays on is another day's worth of damage that'll have to be repaired once he's gone, I feel your pain about Trudeau and the Liberals. It's virtually impossible to remove a party leader from the grassroots as I'm sure you know; it requires either a caucus revolt or staffer revolt - and in both parties the caucuses are too scared, and the staffers too focused on their own self-interest to do anything (not realizing, or not caring, that once the parties collapse after the next election, donor money and parliamentary budgets will dry up and many of them will end up having to find new jobs anyway). I decided not to attend the last NDP convention because I 1) figured it wasn't worth $1,000 to go just to vote against Singh's leadership and 2) know that the party isn't bound by any of the decisions or policies that are passed anyway. The damage by Trudeau staying on isn't just in polling or seat counts, it's in the alienation of the volunteer base that the Liberals rely on to offset the Conservatives' massive fundraising edge (same goes for the NDP). It's infinitely harder to convince a volunteer or party member to come back than it is to keep them happy while they're still involved. It's devastating to see the damage such a small number of leaders and high-ranking people can have on these parties by insisting on the status quo.
history has a number of examples of children who ran for power to prove something to their father who did not think much of them. that powerful and irrational drive will not be stopped by facts or reason. what this is exposing is the personal calculus of the other cabinet members. they are in this for themselves, not us.