AGAR: Can a Trudeau successor overcome the stink of Liberals?

Published Oct 14, 2024  •  Last updated 7 minutes ago  •  2 minute read

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at the change of command ceremony for Defence Staff General Jennie Carignan at the War Museum in Ottawa, July 18, 2024. Photo by Jean Levac / Ottawa Citizen /Postmedia Network

Polls have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals hanging over a cliff facing oblivion with the real possibility of the NDP or Bloc giving them the final push.

Article content

But everyone loves a good comeback story. Do the Liberals deserve one? I’d say no.

Recovery begins with great change, including admission of fault and apology, but Trudeau seems impervious to self-analysis beyond a pat on his own back.

Anonymous grumblings from within the party have been reported, but so far no coup in the manner of the sidelining of Joe Biden; a move that may work for the Democrats.

Would a change at the top work for the Liberals? That is impossible to say. In Ontario, when things looked a bit touchy for the provincial Liberals, Premier Dalton McGuinty stepped down, Kathleen Wynne won the leadership and went on an ‘It wasn’t me tour’ that worked very well … until it didn’t. But it saved the Liberal political bacon for a time.

Article content

Article content

The stink is so bad on the Liberals right now that it seems only a true outsider — a non-elected individual — could credibly make the claim so disingenuously made by Wynne.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO

What stink you ask?

Let me count the ways. Multiple ethical violations; faux feminism and an attempt to interfere in an investigation of a Quebec company both exposed by the treatment of Jody Wilson-Raybould; interference in fire mitigation to the point of devastating fires in B.C.; plans to increase a carbon tax the vast majority of Canadians want scrapped altogether; failure to even look like they care about exploding antisemitism; appointing an anti-racism czar who turned out to be a racist; refusal to tell the public who they suspect of treason while seeming to do nothing to stop it and stonewalling an investigation; a massive increase in the size of the federal government with no discernable benefit to the public; almost nothing done with huge promises to the Indigenous community, which includes mocking and removing from a Liberal fundraiser natives who had the temerity to ask for clean drinking water; Liberal ministers giving lucrative contracts to friends and family; the WE scandal; bungling of immigration and refugee programs to the point of refugees living on the street in Toronto while putting upward pressure on already high housing prices in the city; invoking emergency powers and closing bank accounts to counter noise and parking infringements in Ottawa; etc., etc., etc.

Article content

Should I have included blackface and running around the globe embarrassing us by playing Mr. Dressup?

So far, the only credible name floated as a successor — who is not already deeply involved in elected Liberal politics — is banker Mark Carney.

A profile in the National Post reads, “For the Conservatives, Carney embodies an out-of-touch banker, a global elite who cannot possibly understand the struggles of the common folk. But Liberals who want the party to return to the political centre could be swayed by his economic expertise and business acumen, plus the fact he comes without the baggage of having served under Trudeau.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre calls him “Carbon Tax Carney” and he has been called a human calculator. Hardly inspiring.

But then, he hasn’t yet campaigned.

So, unlike the rest of them, he doesn’t have Liberal stink.

But who would want to save this bunch other than someone who only cares about power?

Article content