Opinion | ‘Not your usual rabble-rousers’: Inside the growing calls among MPs for Justin Trudeau to step down

“Atlantic caucus had a difficult, frank and open conversation about the future of the party,” he told Liberal MPs, according to sources in the room. Then he left.

MPs looked at each other. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not there — he’d left earlier in the week for Laos, for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). He is scheduled to return Saturday.

“People were like, and what does that mean?” recounted one MP in the room. 

While many were unaware of the specifics of the meeting, most had a sense of what was going on. It was far from the only caucus grouping where dissatisfaction with the leader was the topic du jour.

Few wanted to spill the beans. For some, it’s a fear of retaliation from the Prime Minister’s Office — it’s on the hunt for leakers, and the prime minister’s director of communications Max Valiquette earlier warned MPs that journalists should not be trusted, and that they would “trade” their names for access and information from the PMO (I would never, ever do this).

For others, it’s about ensuring a confidential place for colleagues to talk. 

For others still, it’s a desire to keep their plans out of the public light until they are ready to execute.

What is afoot — what the PMO also doesn’t want to leak out — is that there are several discussions within caucus about pressuring Trudeau to step down.

As the Star earlier reported, there is growing frustration that the planned ad campaign discussed last month at the caucus meeting in Nanaimo, B.C hasn’t materialized, that there is no national campaign director announced, and no cabinet shuffle yet. What’s also changed in the last few weeks, is that since Parliament has been back, Liberal MPs have spent a lot of time together. They’ve started talking to each other more openly, more candidly. And they’ve come to realize beyond their circles of trust, that there are more MPs who share their point of view. 

Last week’s Nanos poll showing the NDP ahead of the Liberals didn’t help. Neither did the prime minister’s interview on Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith’s podcast, which seemed to further demonstrate to MPs the lack of urgency to execute on any strategy that could restore public support.

More MPs appear to have concluded they can’t win under Trudeau. Their constituents report being afraid of Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives. And option “C” has become: “Liberal revolt. Get a new leader,” in the words of another MP.

MPs were granted anonymity to speak candidly without fear of repercussions about internal party matters.

The result is at least one effort — there appears to be several groups of MPs talking — to publicly pressure the prime minister to step down. 

“This is not your usual rabble-rousers, this runs deeper than that,” offered a third MP.

They’ve talked about storming the microphone at caucus to urge Trudeau to resign. Calls were being made this week asking MPs to sign a letter. There are at least 30 to 40 MPs ready to sign it, according to several caucus sources.

More MPs believe Trudeau should step aside, but getting a “critical mass,” said a fourth MP — which is at least half of the Liberal caucus, or 76 MPs — to sign it might be a challenge. Thirty-seven out of 152 MPs are already cabinet ministers. Several aspiring backbenchers and parliamentary secretaries hope their ticket will come up in a cabinet shuffle — one that is rumoured to happen before the end of November.  Others are hedging their bets, wanting to ensure that the resulting movement amounts to something — that they are not putting themselves into a position where they will be hung out to dry.

Those concerns aren’t without merit. Back in June, after the disappointing byelection result in Toronto—St. Paul’s, some Liberal MPs hoped to spur the discussion over leadership. When New Brunswick MP Wayne Long saw it wasn’t amounting to anything,  he wrote an email to his caucus mates calling on Trudeau to step down. Nobody followed suit. 

Will those organizing the current effort be successful?

It’s too early to tell. Several former advisers and trusted friends have told Trudeau recently he should go. Nothing appears to have changed.

Could this movement lead to something different? Will Trudeau prorogue Parliament to save his and his government’s future? Or will he face the growing calls for him to go from an increasingly dissatisfied caucus? As PMO ponders how to mute the mutiny before it begins, MPs are left to wonder how long the prime minister can really hang on.