Should Trudeau Stay or Go?
The Ontario Liberal Experience
In the spring of 2017, I had had one of the busiest weeks of my life. I was leading communications for Ontario’s Minister of Housing who was also responsible for the Poverty Reduction Strategy. That week was the lead-up to the 2017 budget, which was primarily focused on tackling the then-emerging housing crisis through the Fair Housing Plan, province-wide rent control, and the best-funded supportive housing program in the province’s history.
I was also covering the press secretary role as ours had moved to the Ministry of Health to help promote the rollout of OHIP+, a program introduced to cover prescription drug costs for young people under 25. It was a big piece of the budget’s goal to reduce costs on families. Without a press secretary, I would be the one staffing the Minister as we rolled out our pre-budget announcements across the province.
Our Chief of Staff was also away that week and I was tapped to manage our team in her absence. This also meant coordinating the launch of Ontario’s Basic Income Pilot with our colleagues in the Ministry of Community and Social Services. The Pilot was a groundbreaking program and generated a lot of public interest and media attention. It was also personally important to the Premier and her team.
All of this meant I had a better vantage point than most to understand just what a big deal the 2017 budget was in terms of addressing the pressure points the people of Ontario were facing. All of these commitments were well received by the public. None of them moved the polls. Just over 400 days later, we were all out of a job.
Popular Policies, Unpopular Politicians
I bring up that history because it feels like it’s now repeating itself at the federal level. By the time the 2018 provincial election had rolled around, the Ontario Liberals had been in power for 15 years and managed to win four straight mandates. The policies they put forward in the 2017 budget, and those that followed in the 2018 budget and campaign platform (like province-wide childcare), were popular. But the party itself — and especially the party leader — were not.
This same disconnect is now happening to the Trudeau Liberals after eight years in office. Most of their core policies are popular and well-received, even if the personalities behind them are not. According to Abacus Data, the vast majority of Canadians want to see the national childcare and dental care programs continue even if Pierre Poilievre becomes the prime minister. These programs are also popular with conservative voters and have only become more popular with them since 2023.
And while the federal pollution-pricing program is increasingly unpopular with voters, a large majority still wants to see action taken on climate change. That’s also true of conservative voters whose concern for this issue has increased year-over-year. It’s clear the Trudeau years have helped jump-start support for addressing this issue, even for voters who don’t agree with how he’s chosen to do it.
Trudeau has not enjoyed the same response from voters as his policies. According to Relay Strategies founder Kyla Ronellenfitsch, the top five attributes applied to Trudeau in Relay’s recent polling included the following: poor judgment, arrogant, unethical, dangerous, and condescending. During her recent appearance on the Herle Burly Podcast, Ronellenfitsch did point out that these are not new attributes being applied to Trudeau. To some degree, Canadians have long felt this way. What is new is that his negatives now lead his positives.
Some like to point out that many people felt the same way about his father, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. There’s even a scene in the Colm Feore-led 2002 CBC movie about Trudeau Sr. where the Prime Minister is told voters think he’s an arrogant jerk but also think he’s still the best person for the job. Trudeau Sr. would of course go on to serve as PM for 15 years while winning four elections (non-consecutively). The hope in Liberal circles is that his son — who has proven to be a gifted campaigner — can repeat this feat.
A lot of Ontario Liberals thought the same thing about Kathleen Wynne. She had proven her talents on the campaign trail first during a leadership race she wasn’t expected to win and then during a general election pollsters and pundits thought for sure she’d lose. Like Trudeau, she had been seen by voters as a breath of fresh air when she took over the reins of government. But by the 2018 campaign, they had begun to see her as a typical politician. According to Ronellenfitsch’s polling, 25% of voters in Canada now feel the same way about Trudeau.
The Historical Record
Liberals outside of the Ontario bubble may think I’m comparing apples and oranges or that I’m carrying some provincial election PTSD. But when we pan out to the wider Canadian electoral experience through history, things look much worse for the Trudeau Liberals.
When it comes down to it, they are hoping to achieve something that has not been accomplished in over 100 years — win a fourth straight mandate.
If Trudeau were to serve another term as Prime Minister, he would likely make it to the ten year mark in office. Only five other prime ministers out of the 23 who have served to date have accomplished that feat: Macdonald, Laurier, King, Pierre Trudeau, and Chretien. And only two of them—Macdonald and Laurier — have won four elections in a row.
Plenty have tried to match them. King’s Liberals won power three times through various configurations in the 1920s but lost to Bennett’s conservatives in the 1930 election. King later won three more elections in a row but stepped down instead of contesting a fourth. Diefenbaker won a minority, then a majority, then another minority before losing to Pearson. Pierre Trudeau did almost the reverse, winning a majority, then a minority, then another majority before losing to Joe Clark. Jean Chretien followed King’s example and stepped down instead of trying to win a fourth straight election. And Stephen Harper won two minorities and a majority but lost to Justin Trudeau while trying to win a fourth straight term.
Could a New Leader Turn the Polls Around?
The Trudeau Liberals would be facing tough odds even if they had governed perfectly and to the taste of Canada’s almost 28 million eligible voters. This seems pretty clear given the lack of movement in the polls even after they released a voter-friendly budget full of popular policies. The question now becomes whether that fatigue is baked into the party at large or if it is still largely contained mostly to the leader.
Given the vitriolic response a lot of the electorate now has towards Trudeau, there is an opening for the Liberals to turn things around. If he were to step down this summer, it could give the party enough time to elect a new leader and build a winning campaign around that person over the next 500 days.
That’s exactly what happened when Dalton McGuinty stepped down in 2012. He too had led the Liberals to three straight victories but had grown unpopular with the electorate. A leadership race was held which Kathleen Wynne won. The campaign team branded her premiership as an entirely new government that would govern from “the activist centre” rather than as a direct continuation of the McGuinty years. 502 days later, she won a surprise majority government and earned the party four more years to implement its policy agenda.
Many called on her to step down in the summer of 2017 to allow a similar phase of renewal to happen before the now deeply unpopular party lost power. I still believe after 15 years in power, the electorate would have voted out the Liberal government no matter who was leading it. There was also no real heir apparent to take over the leadership (as much as some former ministers and their teams might disagree with me).
But what might have been different was the scale of the loss. Without Wynne at the helm, the party may have been able to limit its losses and might have been able to enter a rebuilding phase with some of its political strengths intact. Instead it lost party status and has still not fully recovered.
Who Could Be the Next Liberal Leader?
If a win seems impossible under Trudeau, the party needs to look at other options. But the Liberal Party of Canada has struggled with political mentorship since Pearson left office. Until Justin Trudeau, much of the party’s modern history has been marked by infighting between different factions fighting to install their chosen candidate as leader. His leadership brought at minimum a pause to that infighting. But it has also meant there are no obvious contenders waiting in the wings.
Within Liberal circles, the most popular answer to replace him is Chrystia Freeland. But as I said during the recent Ontario Liberal leadership race, it is rarely a good strategy to pick someone who played a large role shaping the record you are now trying to get some distance from. In the case of Freeland, I think she is seen by many voters as co-PM which will mean she will wear everything Trudeau is already wearing.
Another name I’ve heard is Dominic LeBlanc. But he suffers from some of the same baggage as Trudeau, namely he comes from a famous political family and has been an insider of sorts all his life. Unfairly or not, if there’s anything Poilievre’s populist rise is signaling clearly it’s that voters are tired of insiders who they perceive to prioritize other insiders above everyone else.
Then there’s Mark Carney. The “business Liberals” who have hated the social spending of the Trudeau years are salivating over this candidacy. He certainly has brains. But in a campaign that is already shaping up to be about emotional narratives rather than thoughtful policy solutions, I don’t see a professorial technical type beating out Poilievre. It would almost certainly feel like the Michael Ignatieff experience all over again.
I’ve argued before that being a strong communicator has to be a core skill of any political leader. On the federal scene, I don’t think there is anyone better than the Housing Minister, Sean Fraser. At just 40, he represents a new generation of political talent in the party and has grown up with the same generational experiences as the voting blocks that are currently turning away from the party. One thing working against him is the rising anti-immigration sentiment in the country and the fact that he recently held that portfolio.
What any potential candidate will have to weigh is whether they think they can actually win with under 500 days to work with should Trudeau actually step down. They will have to also consider whether they can live with potentially becoming a sacrificial lamb should the party still lose the next election. And whether they have what it takes to bring the party back together and rebuild should they stay on as leader.
It All Comes Down to Trudeau
Ultimately whether Trudeau stays or go will be up to just one person: Trudeau. He will have to weigh his own ambition, the legacy he wants to leave, whether he still gives the party its best chance to win, and ultimately what’s best for the country.
If he chooses to leave, he really needs to do it by July to give the party time to hold a leadership race and prepare for the campaign under the new leader. Waiting could create the same situation Brian Mulroney left for Kim Campbell, who started off neck and neck with Chretien in the polls but was ultimately felled by a poorly run campaign that simply wasn’t ready for prime time.
If Trudeau chooses to stay, he needs to signal that loud and clear and the party has to fall in line behind him. The party’s election hopes won’t be well-served by its organizers and supporters spending the next 500 days sniping at the leader instead of trying to win back voters.
Whatever he chooses to do, this promises to be an interesting summer.
Theresa has served as the Communications Coordinator for the Ontario Liberal Party, the VP Communications for the Ontario Women’s Liberal Commission, the Director of Communications to Ontario Deputy Premier Deb Matthews, and an election-speechwriter for former Premier Kathleen Wynne. As a member of ‘Team Neutral’, she helped manage the 2013 and 2020 OLP Leadership races.
