Prime Minister Trudeau has pledged to lead his Liberal party into the election next year.It wasn’t hard to see it coming.To begin with, it’s just about too late to Biden-ize him. Having a leadership convention and selling a new leader to the public should be a two-year job, and the election is less than 14 months away. Given the peculiar circumstances of the US Democratic Party, it hardly makes the case that these things can be done more quickly.Furthermore, it was never going to happen without a Liberal canary-of-prey such as the US Democratic Party’s Nancy Pelosi to force the issue. Such a person with their own power base, and within their gift the ability to punish or reward, might with discreet phone calls and surreptitious nods and winks across a crowded room have aligned the forces of dissent at this week’s party retreat and precipitated a lethal moment.But, the Liberal Party has no alternative centre of power, they know it and the PM knows it and so not for nothing did he testily dismiss a reporter’s attempt to draw comparisons between himself and US President Joseph Biden. Apart from the obvious — Mr. Trudeau’s threshold of competence is only a little higher than Biden’s but he seldom falls upstairs — he has been considerably more successful at isolating any power bases within the party that could challenge him.Ottawa political consultant Yaroslav Baran described it on Hannaford recently, "When he took over as party leader, the first thing Trudeau did was to take out all the capital regimes in his party, all the independent points of authority and power.”Thus, he excommunicated the Liberal senators, who now sit as Independents. (Supposedly. For Independents, they have demonstrated surprising fealty to the old party.)Then he went after the local captains, the party leaders in Montreal and Toronto, the chieftains who served as gatekeepers to the Italian community, the Greek community, and of the ethnic institutions through which in the past the Liberal Party had exerted so much informal influence.“He put those micro institutions out of their misery,” said Baran, “and created a party that had only one focus of loyalty, and that was to him. That and the way he did candidate recruitment… he went after so-called star candidates… Olympians and star bankers and notable journalists and so on, and people from outside the Liberal Party, so that their allegiance isn't necessarily to the Liberal Party because they’ve been a lifelong member, it's to him so that he's in a stronger position than most party leaders would be in a situation like this.”But there’s one other thing.Who were they going to get?The reservoir of talent in the Liberal Party’s DEI-inspired caucus has never been deep. Meanwhile, anybody on the Liberal front bench with the nouse to do the job, also has enough sense not to take it. The most likely reward would be to be remembered as the guy who lost... a Kim Campbell then, to Trudeau’s Brian Mulroney. No thanks.It being 2015 and all that, there are of course a number of genuine Kim Campbell-style hopefuls who might accept the poisoned chalice for the sake of having it on their resume, but they are not the people to turn back the Conservative tide. And in any case, does it really make one more employable to be cited forever as a metaphor for electoral annihilation?In this respect, Mr. Trudeau has proceeded in an entirely savvy manner.So on he goes, doubtless with the goal of bringing to fruition in the next 12 months every destructive policy he ever imagined, to frustrate the West and limit the compass of those who like to drive. It could seem like a long year.Nevertheless, count me among those who think that’s just fine.After nine years of disgrace, dismay and disaster, Mr. Trudeau deserves to be kicked out.It is not for him to choose his own moment to slink out the door.
Prime Minister Trudeau has pledged to lead his Liberal party into the election next year.It wasn’t hard to see it coming.To begin with, it’s just about too late to Biden-ize him. Having a leadership convention and selling a new leader to the public should be a two-year job, and the election is less than 14 months away. Given the peculiar circumstances of the US Democratic Party, it hardly makes the case that these things can be done more quickly.Furthermore, it was never going to happen without a Liberal canary-of-prey such as the US Democratic Party’s Nancy Pelosi to force the issue. Such a person with their own power base, and within their gift the ability to punish or reward, might with discreet phone calls and surreptitious nods and winks across a crowded room have aligned the forces of dissent at this week’s party retreat and precipitated a lethal moment.But, the Liberal Party has no alternative centre of power, they know it and the PM knows it and so not for nothing did he testily dismiss a reporter’s attempt to draw comparisons between himself and US President Joseph Biden. Apart from the obvious — Mr. Trudeau’s threshold of competence is only a little higher than Biden’s but he seldom falls upstairs — he has been considerably more successful at isolating any power bases within the party that could challenge him.Ottawa political consultant Yaroslav Baran described it on Hannaford recently, "When he took over as party leader, the first thing Trudeau did was to take out all the capital regimes in his party, all the independent points of authority and power.”Thus, he excommunicated the Liberal senators, who now sit as Independents. (Supposedly. For Independents, they have demonstrated surprising fealty to the old party.)Then he went after the local captains, the party leaders in Montreal and Toronto, the chieftains who served as gatekeepers to the Italian community, the Greek community, and of the ethnic institutions through which in the past the Liberal Party had exerted so much informal influence.“He put those micro institutions out of their misery,” said Baran, “and created a party that had only one focus of loyalty, and that was to him. That and the way he did candidate recruitment… he went after so-called star candidates… Olympians and star bankers and notable journalists and so on, and people from outside the Liberal Party, so that their allegiance isn't necessarily to the Liberal Party because they’ve been a lifelong member, it's to him so that he's in a stronger position than most party leaders would be in a situation like this.”But there’s one other thing.Who were they going to get?The reservoir of talent in the Liberal Party’s DEI-inspired caucus has never been deep. Meanwhile, anybody on the Liberal front bench with the nouse to do the job, also has enough sense not to take it. The most likely reward would be to be remembered as the guy who lost... a Kim Campbell then, to Trudeau’s Brian Mulroney. No thanks.It being 2015 and all that, there are of course a number of genuine Kim Campbell-style hopefuls who might accept the poisoned chalice for the sake of having it on their resume, but they are not the people to turn back the Conservative tide. And in any case, does it really make one more employable to be cited forever as a metaphor for electoral annihilation?In this respect, Mr. Trudeau has proceeded in an entirely savvy manner.So on he goes, doubtless with the goal of bringing to fruition in the next 12 months every destructive policy he ever imagined, to frustrate the West and limit the compass of those who like to drive. It could seem like a long year.Nevertheless, count me among those who think that’s just fine.After nine years of disgrace, dismay and disaster, Mr. Trudeau deserves to be kicked out.It is not for him to choose his own moment to slink out the door.
