EDITORIAL: Liberals ignoring what voters are telling them

Published Sep 17, 2024  •  2 minute read

Justin Trudeau and the Liberals keep ignoring the message Canadians have been sending them in opinion polls and after byelection defeats. Photo by John Woods /THE CANADIAN PRESS

If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals want to understand what most Canadians are repeatedly telling them these days, they should heed the words of Oliver Cromwell to the British Rump Parliament of 1653.

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“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing,” Cromwell thundered.

“Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

Now, we don’t endorse what Cromwell did.

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Furious with what he viewed as an incompetent parliament that was focused on its own survival rather than the public good, Cromwell stormed the House of Commons with an armed force, removed its occupants and declared himself Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Today, of course, we don’t remove governments that have lost the confidence of the people by force, but through elections.

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That said, Trudeau and the Liberals keep ignoring the message Canadians have been sending them for more than a year of opinion polls, indicating that if an election was held today it would result in a massive majority for Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives.

Nor have they accepted that Liberal support across Canada is so low that they keep losing byelections in ridings that were once bastions of Liberal support in Toronto and Montreal.

Ridings that were, as the old saying goes, Liberal strongholds where they could run, figuratively speaking, dogs as candidates and still win.

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To be clear, Trudeau and the Liberals have every right to continue in office for another year if they can attract enough support from the opposition parties to avoid defeat on a motion of non-confidence, such as a budget bill.

The bad news is now that NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has pulled out of his deal with Trudeau that would have put off an election until next fall, the PM will have to make deals with the Bloc Quebecois for support.

Bloc Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet has made it crystal clear that in return for his party’s support the Liberals will have to grant concessions to Quebec.

Obviously, that isn’t a great prescription for national unity, so the best advice for now is to hold on tight because the political terrain in Ottawa is about to get very bumpy.

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