Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ruling Liberals, trailing badly in the polls, face a struggle on Monday to retain a once-safe seat in a special election where failure to win could boost calls for a new party leader.
The election in the Montreal parliamentary constituency of LaSalle—Emard—Verdun was called to replace a Liberal legislator who quit.
Normally Trudeau’s party could count on an easy win there but surveys suggest the race is tight. If the Liberals lose, the focus will fall squarely on Trudeau, who has become increasingly unpopular after almost nine years in office.
Unusually, some Liberal legislators are breaking ranks to call for change at the top. Alexandra Mendes, a Liberal lawmaker who represents a Quebec constituency, said many of her constituents wanted Trudeau to go.
“I didn’t hear it from two, three people - I heard it from dozens and dozens of people,” she told public broadcaster Radio-Canada last week. “He’s no longer the right leader.”
Trudeau is a lot like Hillary in that people can’t relate to him and he pushes very strongly for the status quo. He should watch the American election and notice that Biden stepping down was the best thing the Democrat party has done in the last 15 years.
Trudeau doesn’t push strongly for the status quo, it’s that people see him as synonymous with the status quo. He can push out some pretty radical policies and people would still blame him for the economy, woke-ism and whatever bogeyman is of the day.
The timing of Biden dropping out was very strategic to save Harris from getting dragged down by primaries, and leave RNC without much time to come up with an attack strategy. A Canadian election could be up to a year away, seems premature if that is indeed the plan.
That said I don’t think there is a PM that could save the liberals much at this point (I don’t think there is literally anything that could save them now) Freeland has pretty much the same baggage as Trudeau and Canadians vote more for party than for PM.