Time(line) To Save The Liberal Party

On A Leadership Contest Timeline

There are rumours swirling that the PM might actually go next week. There’s regional caucus meetings Monday and Tuesday, and a Wednesday national caucus meeting that is scheduled for 6 hours long. That’s either supposed to be a “you’re not leaving till you do what we want” meeting, or a meeting to hash out the plan forward. But with Lawrence Martin of the Globe claiming that he’s been told to expect a Trudeau resignation this weekend, it’s probably time I write this piece.

If the Liberal Party wants to, they absolutely have the possibility of running a full, membership voting leadership contest. It’s a tight timeline, but it would very easily be doable, and doable without much difficulty. There’s a clear window to do so in a way that is consistent with past timelines, political realities, and will get the Governor General’s approval. And frankly I think a lot of the handwringing about not being able to have a contest in time is nonsense, so let’s say out the path.

Trudeau Announces His Resignation, And Says He’ll Stay On Until A New Liberal Leader Is Chosen

There is no need for an interim leader, there’s no need for three PMs in 3 months, there’s no problem with Trudeau staying as the lame duck with an explicit job mandate from the party to avoid the tariffs and to coordinate out Team Canada approach. It’s an easy move.

Prorogue Parliament Until March 17th

A prorogation until the 17th of March would wipe out four sitting weeks, but that’s not a huge problem. It would be similar in length to how long the Legislature was closed in Ontario when Dalton McGuinty prorogued, and while slightly longer than 2008 it would be still a Prime Minister who recently passed a confidence motion exercising a reverse power.

There is no case against prorogation not being granted - a March 17th return would give Parliament plenty of time, and a built in opportunity, to depose the government if they so choose then. The idea that public statements by party leaders is enough to enact non-confidence by proxy is absurd, especially when Charlie Angus has already said he’d break the whip. The Governor General could only condition this prorogation on speedy return (checked by the March 17th date) and a promise to ensure an immediate confidence vote (which, the Throne Speech represents). There is no reason for any Governor General to reject such a request, especially when the McGuinty and Harper ones were.

Run A Tight Contest

This is the meat of the proposal - cut off the membership as of January 13th (so, the Monday after the announcement), hold two debates, one in each language, the week of February 3rd, mail ballots and/or the identifying info for your online voting portal go out the week of the 10th, voting closes the February 28th, you announce the results March 1st. (To be clear I would never actually suggest separate linguistic debates but I know how the LPC thinks and if I didn’t I’d get laughed out of the room so this is how we do it.)

The virtues of this timeline are clear - little risk of entryism, little risk of any fuckery, it gives the serious candidates a month to campaign within the existing membership and then a 19 day voting window. The other benefit is for the new leader, who gets a two week buffer between winning the leadership and Parliament returning to choose a cabinet and get briefed and write a Throne Speech (and negotiate with/bribe Jagmeet).

At that point, the chips are going to fall where they may. But this is a completely reasonable path forward that would enable the leadership contenders to step up, step out of the Trudeau shadow, and create distance and potentially even some momentum. It would dispel the idea of a backroom solution to this problem, and an open process would make sure that Carney, Clark, and whoever else are allowed to not just run but to meet their potential without outside impediment.

(Carney’s Globe op-ed doesn’t suggest great things for him, however - it was bland, generic pablum that add beneath a man whose whole appeal is that he’s a serious person for this serious moment. If this is all Carney has to offer, he might as well wait this one out and come back with an idea set that doesn’t sound like ChatGPT.)

The problems with this plan are obvious - it’s too short, namely, and the new PM might literally not make it a week from swearing in to vote of non-confidence - but entirely irrelevant. The problems with this process happened the minute the Prime Minister decided not to do what was evident to me in June and resign after losing St. Paul’s. If he had done so, the party would be in an infinitely better place. He didn’t, and now he’s left us all in a lurch. But the idea that his failure to put party before himself up till now means we can’t do anything or that we have to let caucus choose is laughable. This is the best path forward, and it is workable.

Bonus Section: Sources Aren’t Made Up!

I meant to rant about this on my podcast today with Ben Oates but somehow in a 2 hour episode I didn’t have time. (Please listen, subscribe, etc.) There’s been a lot of criticism of the CBC, Global, and iPolitics this week for reporting on the Quebec caucus wanting Trudeau to resign. And it’s pretty clear they’re wrong.

What was reported is that the view of the caucus was for Trudeau to resign. The Quebec caucus chair put out a statement saying that there was no “formal meeting” of the Quebec caucus and no “letter”. He went on to say the caucus is committed to a bunch of things that weren’t Justin Trudeau or supporting him. And people didn’t notice that nothing in the letter actually disputed the reporting.

If someome asks me if I am drunk and I reply I’ve had no vodka and no beer, that’s not actually an answer to the question. Well, it’s an answer, but it’s not a denial. The reason Stéphane Lauzon, the caucus chair, put out that statement is obvious - he wanted to give himself some plausible deniability. But the news outlets didn’t get anything wrong.

The honest truth is that much of the Liberal supporters base are clinging to genuine insanity at this point. They are getting mad at good journalists for reporting facts based on sourcing, as if that’s not what 99% of great stories are built on. By the way, the vast majority of stories about Poilievre you love sharing came from anonymous sources, but consistency isn’t a virtue to them. I can’t wait for the same people to breathlessly share Times or WaPo pieces about Trump based on anonymous White House sources, because of course they will. And everybody knows it.

The honest truth is that caucus has moved against the Prime Minister. It’s over for him. It might suck for you if you genuinely love him, but smearing the press because they accurately report things you don’t like is Trumpian. Unless, of course, you don’t actually mind Trumpian politics when you’re the ones doing it.