Chris Selley: How to fire a party leader who won’t quit

Contents of the article

A very strange and telling topic of conversation has recently emerged among federal Liberals, including among those who seem to think Justin Trudeau should step down as party leader: the idea that Trudeau somehow “deserved right” to decide whether it should remain on or not.

“I have enough respect for him and his functions and the sacrifices they entail that I would prefer to let him decide for him,” Quebec MP Joël Lightbound said this week.

Contents of the article

“The prime minister has earned the right to make any decisions about his leadership,” said former British Columbia premier Christy Clark, who appears hopeful of replacing him.

“We are here because (Trudeau) brought us here in 2015, and therefore he has earned the right to decide,” former Justice Minister David Lametti said over the summer, apparently oblivious to the Liberals’ somewhat less successful performances in 2019 and 2021.

This “earned” language could not be a clearer reflection of how liberals are confusing the interests of the party with the interests of the country. “Earned the right” is the concept you hear about when professional athletes sign their final contract with their hometown team or when popular artists run out of creative juices. If the Rolling Stones wanted to release a new album, people would say that they “earned the right” to do so.

But this is not sport or music. Who runs the country must matter a lot. And this is also completely false. By definition, Trudeau cannot govern—and never could govern—without the support of his caucus. There are 152 of them and he is one. (Previously, there were 183 of them, including him alone.) He did not receive any additional “rights” to his position due to his longevity. The opposite makes more sense.

Contents of the article

Contents of the article

This is a unique situation in Canada among Westminster parliaments. British and Australian MPs, who are polling as Liberals, would be demanding a leadership change if they had not already implemented one.

A simple secret ballot to leave the Justin Trudeau era should look pretty good.

The Michael Chong Reform Act, enacted from the Conservative MPs’ Private Members’ Bill in 2015, gives MPs some courage in situations like these. It codifies the rules for the removal of a party leader from office, as well as the expulsion of faction members; both decisions are made by secret vote of the meeting. Conservative MPs used these procedures to remove Derek Sloan from the caucus in 2021 and end Erin O’Toole’s leadership in 2022.

The idea was to balance the relationship between party leaders and MPs. (Not long ago, MPs chose their own leaders.) But factions must vote to adopt these rules after each election, otherwise they will not apply. And Liberal MPs didn’t just vote against their adoption after the 2021 election. They voted unanimously against the adoption of these rules.

Then-caucus chairwoman Brenda Shanahan refused to justify the vote or offer her own opinion on the matter. “It doesn’t really matter what my opinion is,” Shanahan told the Hill Times, summing up the problem quite accurately.

Contents of the article

Let’s remember that the unanimous vote of confidence in the prime minister and his cabinet came after Trudeau called a snap election pointless about nothing in the midst of a global pandemic and created a weakened minority government.

But hey, at least they actually held a vote. Reports say they didn’t even bother in 2019, after Trudeau lost his Liberal majority and was forced to admit he didn’t know how many photos there might be of him wearing blackface. (The Parliament of Canada Act requires the caucus to vote on the leadership’s powers after an election, but the Liberals apparently didn’t let that bother them.)

It also comes just months after Trudeau demonstrated how corrupting and destructive the overinflated power of a party leader can be when he kicked Jody Wilson-Raybould out of the caucus for doing her job and Jane Philpott for supporting Wilson-Raybould.

If ever there was an ideal moment for Liberal MPs to reclaim some of the power they once had (and still have if they decide to vote en masse to use it), this was certainly the fallout from this fiasco . They didn’t. Apparently, none of them even had the desire to try. As they worry about the future—of their leader, of their party, of their own—the idea of ​​a simple secret ballot to move on from the Justin Trudeau era should look pretty appealing.

National Post
[email protected]

Get more in-depth National Post political reporting and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Khairiddine find out what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, especially for subscribers. Register here.

Contents of the article