Trudeau Makes Another Effort to Change the Subject as Liberals Call for Him to Step Down

It hasn’t been a good week for Justin Trudeau. It started Monday with the surprise resignation of his Finance Minister just as she was supposed to roll out the government’s next budget. Since then there have been a series of calls for his resignation, including from Jagmeet Singh, leader of the NDP.  

It’s one thing when members of rival parties are calling for your ouster. It’s something else when members of your own party are doing the same.

As rising numbers of Liberal lawmakers called Tuesday for Trudeau to resign, the country’s minister of natural resources, Jonathan Wilkinson, said “we all need to give him a little time to reflect.”…

“My guess is that if another minister or two goes, he’s toast, he will be forced to resign,” said Canadian historian Robert Bothwell.

But while Trudeau is reflecting, about a third of his own party is ready for him to throw in the towel and give someone else a chance.

Jenica Atwin, a Liberal who serves as parliamentary secretary to a cabinet minister, told a newspaper in her home province of New Brunswick that Trudeau should leave and that she won’t run for reelection if he stays.

Chad Collins, an Ontario member of parliament, said that around 50 elected Liberals — perhaps more — are part of a growing group that wants the prime minister’s resignation. Other Liberals in the anti-Trudeau camp have given similar numbers. That would be about a third of the 153-person Liberal contingent in the House of Commons…

“In terms of who the successor is, I don’t know at this point whether or not we could do much worse,” he said.

Trudeau still thinks he can massage this situation enough to survive. He has announced plans for a cabinet shakeup which will be announced tomorrow.

Embattled Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will shuffle his Cabinet Friday, two senior officials familiar with the matter said Thursday.

The officials confirmed the shuffle and spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

This sounds to me like an anonymous leak authorized by Trudeau himself. The goal here is to change the subject. Instead of another news cycle about calls for his resignation he’ll have a day focused on his new cabinet.

For now it looks like Trudeau is safe because while members of his party can complain to the press, they can’t actually force him out unless he loses a vote of no confidence.

Unlike the Conservatives, who installed an ejector seat in the leader’s chair a decade ago, Trudeau’s caucus has no power to remove a leader. (Unless they just lost an election.) Parliament will have a chance to express a vote of no confidence in Trudeau’s government early next year, though it is far from clear that such a vote will succeed—the center-left New Democratic Party and the separatist Bloc Québécois have continued to prop up his unpopular government.

Trudeau could decide to leave on his own but he’s obviously not going to do that so long as he thinks he can hold on until the next election which is still 10 months away.