Front Burner

Lessons from the last federal Liberal mutiny

The two backroom strategists that helped Paul Martin take down Jean Chrétien weigh in on the Liberal caucus mutiny against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Finance Minister Paul Martin review their notes during the plenary session of the United Nations conference on ways to reduce world poverty in Monterrey Mexico Thursday March 21, 2002. Prime Minister Chretien announced Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2002 he intends to step down in February 2004. (CP PICTURE ARCHIVE/) (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)

As we approach the deadline set by dissenting members of Liberal caucus for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to resign, we look back at the last time there was a mutiny against a once popular Liberal Prime Minister.

It's the year 2002 and after successfully winning three majority governments, Jean Chrétien has several members of his party come out and urge him to resign, throwing their support behind his recently fired finance minister, Paul Martin. In the backroom, pulling the strings for Martin were political strategists, David Herle and Scott Reid.

Herle and Reid join us to talk about how they did it, what's changed about party politics since then and why taking Trudeau down might be much more difficult. 

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