Trudeau Resigns Liveblog: Alone, Together

Let’s Watch History

(Like I did the day of Chrystia Freeland’s resignation, I’ll be running a live blog throughout the day. This piece will be updated, with time stamps, whenever there is either news to commentate on or to annotate. Keep this open and follow my social media to know when I update - plenty of intel will be dropped if and when I have any. Updates will flow bottom to top, when added. I will try to keep updates consistent, with no more than 30 minutes breaks in between.

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3:15 PM: The Scrimshaw Show is rendering, my media duties are (for now) completed, and I’m about to take a nap, so no more service till about 5PM (if anything else happens), but the state of play that led us to today seems worth recapping.

Justin Trudeau nearly killed the Liberal Party. It is the act of a brave woman and committed passionate Liberals that saved it, but right now we’re in a near death position because of Justin Trudeau. That is his legacy. Let’s see if he can be bailed out of that.

2:00 PM: Jagmeet Singh needs to get more of my venom than he’s gotten so far, so before I dip again for a few more minutes to record Politics Politics Politics, let’s do this. Truly, what an incredibly pathetic performance from him today. Jagmeet has had every opportunity to be the bigger man and he systematically chooses not to be.

What Canada needs right now, and what the NDP especially needs right now, is adults in the room. People are pissed as hell at Trudeau for being egotistical and selfish. There is no reason he cannot step up and show himself to be reasonable and adult right now. Except that he’s a man child who doesn’t know shit from a hole in the ground. He's a moron who thinks the Canadian people do not blame him for the actions of his own votes. He cannot be the change the NDP need to show themselves as because he is responsible for every single aspect of this government. And he’s also proving himself to be an asshole. What a combo.

1:17 PM: I talked about this on the pod coming later with Ben Oates (subscribe to my YouTube!), but Melanie Joly is a weird candidate to peg. She is probably disadvantaged by the points system (a lot of her votes will come from Montreal), and she’s a candidate who makes a lot more sense in a vacuum than in reality.

In theory, she’s the pro-Palestinian Foreign Minister who can unite the left, Quebec, and cities into a coalition. The problem is she’s also the same Minister who thinks it’s colonialist to appoint ambassadors to countries and who is generally understood to be not particularly intelligent. I don’t see how the answer to an intellectually lacking Quebecer is to appoint another one.

1:00 PM: My instinct if I were Francois-Philippe Champagne would be to stay out of this race - I don’t think either him or Joly can win this, but if I’m him I’d choose between Anand and Freeland and work like hell to deliver them the points they need in non-Montreal Quebec. Given Champagne’s well known organizing skills and his willingness to work hard, it’s a logical fit in exchange for DPM and Finance Minister.

12:40 PM: My instinct is this leadership race starts with Chrystia Freeland as the favourite, by no means prohibitively though. I’m very low on Clark and Carney, I think LeBlanc is dead by the points system, and I don’t think either Quebecer can win enough points in Ontario.

I’m open to changing my mind but I think Anand is the leading challenger - if she runs. (Despite my endorsing her, I’ve never spoken to Anand, and have no inside info on her thinking, to be clear.)

12:00 PM: Poilievre is trying to tar every other Liberal with the Trudeau brand, Singh is complaining about everything, and everyone is playing politics. But again, this is a bad thing for the opposition, and they’re displeased.

It’s gonna be fun to see how the polls change - Abacus is going into the field tonight so I’ll cover that when it drops.

11:35 AM: John Manley was allowed to stay as Finance Minister in 2003, for what it’s worth, while opposing Paul Martin for the leadership.

11:30 AM: Oh thank God whoever this last reporter is for asking whether Ministers will need to resign to run for the leadership. (Sorry, I didn’t catch who it was.)

Trudeau is ducking the question but he’s not saying that Ministers will have to resign and is suggesting that the rules will be set soon.

11:24 AM: Trudeau is now trying to stick handle his prorogation hypocrisy, and he’s doing it okay. It’s an argument he would have hated in 2008, but whatever, he’s right. He has the confidence now, so he gets to do it, fuck the quotes.

He’s entirely correct that quotes don’t mean shit and I do want to make clear that everybody who argued that the GG wouldn’t give this prorogation is an idiot.

Trudeau also thinks the Parliament might be more functional and less polarized when he leaves. I would suggest that that is a naive hope, but whatever, I’ll let it slide.

11:19 AM: He’s now explaining why he fired Freeland - he hoped she’d take the fake US Canada relations job and she chose not to. (This is so empty, so fake, so utterly devoid of anything.)

His refusal to actually answer any question is something I won’t miss when the door hits me on the way out. (Okay he did answer it on the follow up, in fairness - he claims there is another leader who can beat Poilievre.)

11:14 AM: Trudeau is now answering a handful of questions. He’s reiterating that he’s a fighter but it’s become clear he can’t continue. (That the follow up wasn’t “why now?” but “what is your proudest accomplishment and biggest regret?” is journalistic malpractice.)

Trudeau is repeating the successes, and saying he regrets not pushing through Ranked Ballots. Sure bud. You literally could have done it, you had a majority government. The referendum requirements are a fiction, and you could have like Australia did over a century ago.

11:10 AM: I would like to make clear that I am quite grateful to the Prime Minister delivering the exact same speech in both languages - makes it easier to live blog.

Wait, that’s it? He barely said anything!

11:05 AM: Starting with the greatest hits - reconciliation, Ukraine, new NAFTA, COVID, etc etc - and talking about how he wants to fight because of how much he loves Canada. He will “always” be motivated by best interests of Canadians, complaining about Parliament being “paralyzed” despite “best efforts” (you could have ended it any fucking day but whatever).

He’s resigning after a “robust, nationwide process”. He asked the party President to start the process, he acknowledges he can’t be the right person to give us a robust fight in the election. (What took you so long to notice asshole.)

10:58 AM: Trudeau is still late to walk out of Rideau Cottage. Looking for two things in this speech - he’ll presumably dispense with a lot of the details on timelines and the contest, and a lot of legacy talk that will make me want to lose my mind.

I will try and be polite about Trudeau, but let’s not pretend I’m suddenly a different person than I am.

10:45 AM: The Conservatives are unhappy today, for what it’s worth. I’ve reported it before, but Jenni Byrne actively didn’t want the CPC to win the St. Paul’s byelection because she didn’t want to face the LPC under a new leader. Justin Trudeau is the best electoral asset for Poilievre right now. His removal makes things slightly harder for the Conservatives, if only because it represents uncertainty. When you have a lead, you don’t want it.

Whether the change is good for the NDP depends on who wins the contest. A Clark win would be a boost for them, at least rhetorically, but they had gotten some boost in recent polls as a non-Trudeau option. Now that’s gone.

10:30 AM - Worth noting that all the idiots who tried to claim there was a universe in which Mary Simon would say no to a prorogation request are suddenly quiet. Trudeau got his legitimate use of a reserve power through like he always was going to. It’s a shock, shock I say.

He was also never going to prorogue through the G7, the other way people claimed he’d be able to. This is exactly what was going to happen this whole time, because the fact that I could get the prorogation date within a week means it was always obvious. Conspiracies are having a bad day, and cold realities are having a good one.

(Also, how are the people who claimed that Bob Fife was making shit up doing?)

Preview - 10:15 AM

This has been a long time coming, but it appears the time has come. The Prime Minister, after a long year of dithering and delaying, has gone to the Governor General and prorogued Parliament until March 24th. That gives the Liberal Party an extra week compared to my proposed timeline to hold a leadership contest, but does guarantee the party will have time for a membership-voted contest. That is not a guarantee that there will be a membership election, but there is the time for it. Such a timeline would be less tight than the PCPO in 2018.

Trudeau is announcing his resignation at 10:45AM in a speech to the nation. At 2PM a Zoom Webinar will be held for the Liberal caucus on questions relating to the Liberal Party constitution and their role on caucus members. How soon before we get the shape of the contest - official dates, entry fees, spending limits, etc - is unclear, but we’ll have plenty of time today to get into the runners and riders.

Obviously I feel a certain vindication in this - I’ve wanted this outcome for half a year now and I’ve gotten it. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy. I wrote about it for this site overnight, however, that Trudeau is a complicated and not very good figure. He’s so much less than he could have been, and so fundamentally a thing he claimed he was better than. I personally won’t miss him.

Now let’s live blog!