Chris Selley: The desperation of Justin Trudeau is dangerous for everyone. Especially Liberals

The Liberals should be treating anyone of any stature who’s willing to donate his or her body to the cause of the next election like a conquering hero

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Published Oct 18, 2024  •  Last updated 0 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

Maybe Mark Carney would end up being “Michael Ignatieff 2.0” for the Liberals, but that's the direction Justin Trudeau seems to be taking the party anyway. Photo by Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press

It’s disturbingly plausible, as Tasha Kheiriddin argued here on Thursday, that Justin Trudeau might have extended his proverbial runway on Wednesday with his jaw-dropping performance before the parliamentary inquiry into foreign interference in Canadian elections. The most unhinged Trudeau and Liberal partisans are now convinced that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is some kind of Manchurian candidate — or the Indian-brainwashed equivalent — thanks to the prime minister’s claim to know the names of Conservative parliamentarians and candidates “who are engaged in or at high risk of foreign interference.”

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For his truest believers, the fact Trudeau also admitted knowing the names of compromised parliamentarians in other parties will be neither here nor there. While refusing to name any names, Trudeau did mention the riding of Don Valley North in this context, which was as good as naming former Liberal (now Independent) MP Han Dong.

But Dong resigned from the Liberal caucus ages ago, amidst allegations (which Dong vigorously disputes) that he was in league with the Chinese Communist Party. So there, you see? The Liberals care about this stuff; Poilievre doesn’t. Won’t even take a security briefing. It’s a classic Liberal gambit: When all else fails, just try to make the other guy look even worse than they are. What are Canadians going to do, vote NDP? LOL. Sad as it is, history amply demonstrates the tactic’s effectiveness.

But the problem for the Liberals is that anyone impressed by Trudeau’s performance on Wednesday would likely believe almost literally anything negative you told them about Poilievre — in the same way Trudeau’s most empurpled detractors would believe anything negative about the prime minister. (The two men might have little in common, but both feature in disgusting online conspiracy theories about their “real fathers.”)

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As opinion polls amply demonstrate, that doesn’t describe most Canadian voters. Most Canadian voters seem quite eager to move on from the second Trudeau era. Liberal MPs should be the eagerest of all.

Liberal MPs are clearly aware of the peril, if not already resigned to defeat

Trudeau casually tossing ex-Liberal Dong under the big red tour bus, even as he pledged never to “us(e) national security information for partisan purposes,” should be a stark reminder to MPs who weren’t in the prime minister’s wedding party: You could well be next — if not because of foreign interference, real or alleged, then because, like Jody Wilson Raybould, you’re just doing your job properly; or, like Jane Philpott, you’re just standing up for a colleague who’s doing her job properly; or, like Maryam Monsef, lumbered with an electoral-reform file in which Trudeau now admits he had zero interest, you’re just a collateral-damage nobody. (Meanwhile, Bill Blair just continues failing upwards.)

CTV News amusingly reported this week that multiple Liberal MPs are now willing to express their discontent to the prime minister “verbally” — as opposed to in mime, say, or in a specially commissioned opera — which raises the obvious question of who comes next.

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The widely mooted notion of Mark Carney taking over is absurd in more ways than it makes sense. “Michael Ignatieff 2.0” is an entirely reasonable outcome for Liberals to fret about. Or, rather, it would be reasonable to fret about if Trudeau weren’t already in danger of driving the big red bus in that same ditch. Mainstreet Research’s latest poll had the Liberals at 19 per cent support nationwide among “decided and leaning voters,” which is the astonishing nadir Ignatieff managed on election day in 2011.

Most polls have Trudeau safely in the low-to-mid 20s. But that still spells four years, at least, in the political wilderness, and Liberal MPs are clearly aware of the peril, if not already resigned to defeat. We learned Thursday that four Liberal cabinet ministers won’t be running in the next election.  None of the four represent ridings the Liberals are dead-certain to lose. But opposition is a lot less fun than government, even if, like Lower B.C. Mainland MP Carla Qualtrough, you’re just the “minister of sport and physical activity.”

Barring shocking developments, the Liberals seem certain to lose government no matter who carries the flag into Canada’s 45th federal election. I live, and of necessity spend most of my time, in extremely Liberal-friendly ridings. And I have never seen anything remotely like the antipathy people in that universe have towards Trudeau. I have heard plenty of Toronto barstool complaints about prime ministers before. Paul Martin? Ditherer. Jean Chrétien? Thuggish bumpkin. Brian Mulroney? Crook. Stephen Harper? Hitler reincarnated. I have never seen people flinch at the sight of a PM’s face or the sound of his voice like many now do with Trudeau.

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The Liberals should be treating anyone of any stature whatsoever who’s willing to donate his or her body to the cause of the next election like a conquering hero. If it’s Mark Carney, so be it. At least he’s not tarred with the current government’s record.

And at the risk of sounding a bit naive, there is also the good of the country to consider. This foreign-interference debacle needs sunlight and bleach in equal measure, and instead it has become yet another partisan bun fight. We deserve better.

National Post
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