With one shocking sentence on an early December Monday morning, Canada’s former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland immediately changed the political landscape. Freeland penned an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and shared it with Canadians — “For the past number of weeks, you and I have found ourselves at odds about the best path forward for Canada”; with those stinging words, Freeland stepped down from Cabinet.
Prime Minister Trudeau has experienced the ultimate version of something called “momentum of decline” over the last 24 months. Recurring polls from across a multitude of polling firms, and key by-elections losses in Montreal and Toronto indicate Canadians no longer want the current Prime Minister to remain. The Liberal Party of Canada under Trudeau’s direct leadership is now polling in the high teens. His leadership style and policy solutions worked great during the global medical pandemic for COVID-19, but circumstances have changed. Canada’s wallet is empty and Trudeau is now the wrong guy for this time.
Trudeau’s small ‘one-time’ deficit promises back in 2015, immediately turned into a decade of structural deficits and crazy spending that has left many Canadians wondering, where did the money go?
2024 is a different world. Between potential Canada killing 25% tariffs from incoming President Trump, to increased military spending requirements for protecting Canada’s independent Arctic; to assisting Taiwan and Ukraine, it’s clear that Canada’s geopolitical and economic circumstances have changed. We need a leader who is not allergic to balanced budgets and net debt pay down and someone who is concerned about keeping Canada from going bankrupt.
Timing is everything, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced he was leaving politics on February 29th 1984. On September 4th 1984, the newly elected Liberal leader John Turner found out 6 months was not enough time to reverse the polls and it ended in a disaster for the Liberal Party.
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney stepped down Feb 25th 1993 and 8 months later Kim Campbell found out she didn’t have the time needed to develop a proper election campaign strategy, was unable to plan a proper leaders tour, and had no policy direction to fall on. Once again, like Turner, it ended in disaster for Campbell and the Conservative Party.
Justin Trudeau must put the Liberal Party of Canada above his own personal ambitions; unless he truly wants the party to be wiped out at the next election. If so, he should stick around, Trudeau as party leader is the 1 way Pierre Poilievre is guaranteed to win the next election.
Constitutionally Canada can hold federal elections up to 5 years apart. This means if Trudeau stepped down now, the Liberal Party of Canada would have an easy 6 months to elect a new leader, and more importantly the new leader would have 12 months until September 2026 to refocus Canadians on what needs to be done, and give Canada’s natural governing party a chance at winning again.
So the question that everyone is waiting to hear the answer to: Mark Carney and Christy Clark, Canada is calling, are you ready?
Comments
My money is on Mark Carney. He’s a real economist and a statesman, which is exactly what we need right now to counter the extremism south of the border. I’d also argue that Christie Clark is not a real Liberal. The BC Liberals were really the Social Credit who changed their name because of political scandal. They were/are more like Conservatives than Liberals.
However, both are better choices than anyone from this Liberal government. We hear rumours some of them want to run in the next leadership contest but I think they would be wise to sit this one out and wait for the dust to settle.