What's next for Justin Trudeau now that some of his own MPs want him gone?
Embattled prime minister faces caucus calls to go, a depleted cabinet and emerging leadership contenders
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces an acute crisis as a growing number of his own MPs demand that he resign and accuse him of mismanaging his relationship with Chrystia Freeland, once his most trusted lieutenant.
Through it all, he still has the job of governing the country — which is not getting any easier.
Eight cabinet ministers have either retired or resigned in recent months. They've left gaps on Trudeau's front bench as the country grapples with a series of crises, most notably U.S. president-elect Donald Trump's threat to impose economic ruin on Canada through punishing tariffs on exports.
Trudeau's temporary solution for the staffing woes has been to give Dominic LeBlanc much more responsibility — he's currently serving as minister of finance, public safety and intergovernmental affairs, arguably three of the most challenging cabinet portfolios right now.
Trudeau's former governing partner, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, has said Trudeau must resign.
MP Peter Julian, the NDP House leader, said Monday the party will vote non-confidence in the government if Trudeau stays on as Liberal leader into the new year.
Julian said that if this "Liberal debacle" continues into February or March, the NDP will pull its support for the government once and for all. That means a federal election could come as soon as this spring — a grim prospect for Trudeau, given polls that suggest he's deeply unpopular and the Liberal Party has the support of just 20 per cent of voters.
Trudeau has been tight-lipped in public about a challenging week for himself and his government.
He hasn't spoken to the press and he cancelled a series of year-end interviews with media outlets, including CBC News, that were scheduled to take place Wednesday.
At two Liberal Christmas parties this week, one for top donors on Monday and another for political staffers on Tuesday, he made veiled references to the Freeland fracas and the internal movement to oust him.
"Like most families, sometimes we have fights during the holidays. But like most families, we find our way through it," he said Tuesday.
A growing number of calls to resign
What started out as a secret movement to oust Trudeau in October has spilled out into the open, and a growing number of Liberal MPs seem increasingly comfortable with calling for him to resign.
A movement to covertly gather signatures from disaffected MPs for a letter calling on him to resign has exploded into a more concerted campaign to pressure him out of the job.
Those wayward Liberal MPs have been speaking openly to reporters on Parliament Hill and they have gone on political shows like CBC's Power & Politics to press for Trudeau to go.
About 15 Liberal MPs have gone on the record saying Trudeau must resign and make way for somebody else.
Two of them came forward Wednesday to say Trudeau's time is up: Yukon MP Brendan Hanley and New Brunswick MP Jenica Atwin.
Hanley said the way Freeland was treated has forced some MPs to climb down from the fence and support Trudeau's ouster.
"It's kind of rallied many people within caucus to find their voice," Hanley told CBC Radio's Yukon Morning.
He said Trudeau was "a transformation leader" who did a lot of good for Canada but "he needs to now step aside."
"I don't see a viable path forward with the prime minister staying as our leader," he said. "Now is the time."
There are many more Liberal MPs who also want him gone, according to MPs who are pushing for him to resign.
Liberal MP Chad Collins estimates the number of caucus members who want him out at between 40 and 50. If a secret ballot were held on Trudeau's future, he would lose, Collins told CBC Radio.
Liberal MP Wayne Long said at least a third of the caucus — roughly 50 MPs — want him to resign right away, while another third are on the fence. He suggests about a third of the caucus are Trudeau loyalists who think he should press on.
In a letter to MPs sent Wednesday and obtained by CBC News, Long said "the time for loyalty at all costs, for quiet hand-wringing and polite whispers behind closed doors, has passed."
"This isn't just about one man — it's about saving our party from historic defeat," he wrote. "Let's ask ourselves: Do we want to stay silent and allow this to happen? Silence is complicity."
He said Freeland's resignation was "embarrassing" and should "serve as a glaring wake-up call."
He urged cabinet ministers to join the fight to get Trudeau to quit. If that effort fails, Long said, the Liberals will be "willingly ceding the future of our Parliament to the Conservatives."
In a later interview, Long said the push to oust Trudeau is gaining momentum, with more people approaching him every day to join the cause.
"There are ministers that agree with me. How do I know? Because they've told me so," Long said.
"We're headed to oblivion and we need to stand up as elected representatives, do the right thing and convince the leader to step down."
MP Ken Hardie agreed with Long and said that, based on what the polls say, the party faces a crushing defeat if Trudeau sticks around into an election.
Hardie said he's preemptively endorsing Freeland for leader because he believes she's the best person to handle Trump, based on her past success in renegotiating NAFTA.
Other MPs still aren't comfortable going public as anti-Trudeau members of caucus.
MP Sean Casey, an avowed anti-Trudeau member of caucus, said the number of Liberals calling for his resignation will grow after the coming cabinet shuffle.
Sources say some MPs have been approached for background checks and interviews ahead of a shuffle, giving them some hope that they may get tapped to join cabinet — the ultimate goal for many elected officials.
"I think it's much more likely some of these people will express those feelings once they're passed over," Casey said Tuesday.
Trudeau told disaffected MPs at a caucus meeting Monday that he's heard their concerns and would take time to think about his future.
Waiting for the cabinet shuffle
Before Freeland's resignation, it was widely expected that the much-anticipated cabinet shuffle was going to happen this week.
According to a Liberal source who spoke to Radio-Canada, Freeland was told by the prime minister in a Zoom call on Friday that she would be replaced as finance minister by former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney on Tuesday.
But Carney had not agreed to the move when the PM raised it with Freeland, according to a source who spoke to CBC News. Both sources spoke on the condition they not be named.
Freeland ultimately resigned rather than accept a different position, which sources say was minister without portfolio with some responsibility for the Canada-U.S. relationship.
Her resignation derailed the cabinet shuffle plans — but sources have said one could still happen this week to deal with the gaping holes in cabinet.
Six cabinet ministers — Sean Fraser, Pablo Rodriguez, Marie-Claude Bibeau, Carla Qualtrough, Filomena Tassi and Dan Vandal — have told Trudeau in recent months they are not running in the next election. Rodriguez has already left cabinet and is sitting as an Independent.
MP Randy Boissonnault, Trudeau's former employment minister, resigned amid scandal over his Indigenous ancestry claims and business dealings last month.
Those departures, combined with Freeland's resignation, means there are now eight cabinet spots that need to be filled in short order.
In addition to LeBlanc's triple-duty portfolio, Anita Anand is serving as both president of the Treasury Board and transport minister and Ginette Petitpas Taylor is the employment minister, the minister for official languages and the Veterans Affairs minister.
With Trudeau's leadership in a very tenuous position, talk has turned to who could replace him if he resigns.
Freeland has decided to stay on as a Liberal MP and run again in her Toronto-area seat in the next election — a sign that she might launch a leadership campaign of her own if Trudeau quits.
Freeland's decision to resign and then criticize Trudeau's "costly political gimmicks" — a thinly veiled reference to the GST holiday and the promised $200 cheques for working Canadians — could be interpreted as a way for the former finance minister to distance herself from an unpopular prime minister and present herself as a more moderate political force who tried to take on a spendthrift leader.
In an email sent to her staff Tuesday, Freeland said her decision to resign from cabinet rather than be shuffled to some other portfolio "was the right one."
"It will, of course, be a challenging few days, but this will not be the end of the road," Freeland wrote.
Long, the disaffected MP, said there are other possible contenders for Trudeau's job besides Freeland: Carney, LeBlanc, Anand and Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly.
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With files from the CBC's David Cochrane, Rosemary Barton
