Memo To The Liberal Caucus: It’s Time

On Revolts And Reinvention

(It was reported on Friday that the Liberal caucus appears to be in the midst of what has been called a revolt. Parliament’s out next week, which makes the week of the 21st crunch week on a decision on Justin Trudeau’s leadership. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, and of me being absolutely fucking done with this ineffectual leadership and the gaslighting that everything is fine, I’m taking my argument straight to caucus. Here is the letter that every caucus member should read as they decide whether to back their leader or at least try and save their party and country from disaster.)

To The Liberal Caucus,

I note with interest the reporting by Althia Raj and others of a caucus “revolt”, and the question of the caucus’ position on the crisis facing the Liberal Party of Canada. Many of you were first elected under the current Prime Minister; others were returned to Parliament under his leadership. Loyalty to him under those circumstances is not just understandable, but commendable.

What is also commendable is the Government’s record in many places. You can hold your heads high for the votes you’ve taken to reduce child poverty, to save the Canadian economy in the midst of a global pandemic nobody knew how to handle, to decriminalize marijuana, and put the country on a path to increasing access to dental care and needed prescriptions. This government has done a lot. Budgets you’ve voted for have ended over a hundred boil water advisories in Indigenous communities, funded more Veterans Affairs offices, and incentivized businesses to set up shop in Canada. These are, amongst other things, tangible successes you can hold your heads high for achieving.

The problem is, every single one of those accomplishments is at risk because of the decision taken up to now that Justin Trudeau still leads the Liberal Party. His polling numbers are consistent with not just a Poilievre win but a landslide. Losses in Toronto-St. Paul and LaSalle-Émard-Verdun only add to the pressure, but the clear trend has been an ever deteriorating polling position since July 2023. The Government set a goal of 5 points of polling recovery by summer, a nebulously vague target that cannot even be argued to have been achieved. The NDP have now jumped the Liberals for second in two different pollsters, albeit narrowly. This is a crisis. I suspect you are even more aware of the depth of feeling against Trudeau than I am, but it is there even amongst loyal Liberals.

I concede the point that has been articulated by many of you anonymously that there is risk associated with a change due to the lack of a clearly better option. Yes, there is not a very obvious white knight in the wings who can save the party overnight, but that’s not the true test. Kathleen Wynne was not knowably the solution when Ontario Liberals had to find someone to replace Dalton McGuinty in 2012 suddenly; she would lead the party to a majority government.

A leadership race would be an opportunity to raise some money for the party, but more importantly it would be an opportunity for intellectual renewal. The Ontario Liberals raised enough through their tithe of individual donations to pay for the leadership race to occur, pay off debts, and reset the party finances in a healthier state. More significantly, the party’s intellectual framework is rejuvenated, and the party now has multiple sources of ideas and solutions that can be drawn on for future platforms and announcements. Allowing the considerable network of policy wonks, intellectuals, academics, and policy advocates to renew our ideas and refocus us would give us a much better contrast with Poilievre and his stale, out of date Harperite philosophy of small government and heartless cuts.

But the real reason there should be a leadership race is not the benefits of one, or of the benefits of my preferred candidate or any of yours. It’s the reality of doing nothing. Justin Trudeau has served this country in challenging times, and any fair reading of his tenure has to begin and end with the many successes. Those successes will be erased if we have 45 seats and are 180 away from Poilievre. If we allow the Conservatives not just the unfettered power of a Parliamentary majority but the complete freedom of a true, 1984-style landslide, he will feel freer to destroy more and more of the progress we have made and you have worked so hard for. Even if knocking him out of majority government is not possible anymore, the crass political reality is that Poilievre will have to think harder about getting rid of or starving key programs like Child Care, Dental, Pharma, and the CCB if he thinks he could lose his majority if he’s not careful.

We are staring at a government that has been tuned out. There are legitimately horrifying parts of Pierre Poilievre’s record, ideas, votes, and the people he willingly associates with. The Conservatives unanimously voting for a bill that would have created an independent definition of a fetus - which we all can agree is a backdoor attempt to challenge Morgentaler - is the kind of vote that should be hurting Poilievre. And yet we can’t make anything stick. The government’s capital gains changes, announced in the budget, polled well, and yet the government got no bump, and are where we are now. The content of the announcements are being lost because the country has tuned this Prime Minister out.

It is also the case that a new leader would have significantly less baggage that would maximize the potency of key anti-Poilievre attack lines. If Pierre Poilievre is a threat to institutions and will politicize everything, it would probably be best to be making this point with a Prime Minister who didn’t once fire his Justice Minister for refusing to overrule the Director of Public Prosecutions. If we want to attack Poilievre on his willingness to lie to get elected, a new leader who didn’t declare that 2015 would be the last election under First Past The Post or that the story in the Globe was false or that the budget would be balanced by 2020 (which it was not going to be even before COVID) or that Canadian wages had stagnated under Harper might be helpful. If we want to talk about Poilievre’s limited relationship with Indigenous peoples and his lack of plan for furthering reconciliation - or his role in Harper’s government that left so many boil water advisories - then it might be useful not to have a PM who was in “private meetings” on the first ever Truth and Reconciliation Day until someone found him on the beach.

A new leader will be able to land these punches without the immediate baggage of SNC, WE, Tofino, Electoral Reform, and the various other small ethical lapses that Trudeau has presided over. I’m sure many of you think any number of the controversies this government has faced shouldn’t have been so, but it doesn’t matter. Bev Oda wasn’t forced out of Cabinet for lying to the country or to Parliament, she was fired for a $16 glass of orange juice. Politics is about what people think, and what is “deserved” is often not a part of the calculus. We are where we are whether it’s “justified” or not. We need to respond to the challenge.

There are two doors from here; Trudeau stays as PM, a PMO that is already tight with information and insular to a fault tightens even more, and almost all of you lose your seats, or as a caucus you decide that the party must do better. No, changing leaders is not a magical solution to 200 Liberal seats and Liberal immortality, but it’s a road that might end in 100 seats and significantly higher chances of your accomplishments surviving the decade. We all know the current one ends up in the ditch.

If we change leaders and it doesn’t work, you’ll be able to hold your heads high, knowing that you did everything in your power to help the party. If we don’t, and the thing we all know is coming happens, there will always be a cloud over that result, a what if that we failed to give a chance to, and that decision will live with every one of you for a lifetime. Every time Poilievre strips back a legacy achievement that decision will haunt the party, the country, and you. Ontario Liberals are still feeling the consequences of not getting rid of Kathleen Wynne in 2016 when she lost a byelection in Scarborough and muddled on the long march to slaughter, praying that exposing the Opposition Leader would salvage her. 8 years on, the party doesn’t have official status.

Get rid of Trudeau. Your country needs you to unite together, put ideological and regional differences aside, and get rid of Trudeau. You are our only chance to save this party and this country from certain disaster. Don't let him off the hook.