Potential scenarios for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals

By Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press on December 17, 2024.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is pictured through glass as he speaks with members of his caucus in Ottawa, on Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby

OTTAWA – The Liberal government was thrown into disarray this week when Chrystia Freeland stepped down from cabinet as finance minister, reviving calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step down or call an election.

Way down in the polls with 2025 set as an election year and no signs of a Liberal recovery on the horizon, Trudeau is facing a key moment where he must decide whether he should stay or go.

Here’s a look at some of the scenarios and possibilities the Liberals now face:

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Cabinet shuffle

Carlene Variyan of Summa Strategies, a former senior Liberal staffer, said a lot is hinging on what the prime minister does “in the next 24 hours.”

She said if Trudeau wants to remain prime minister, he should move to solidify his cabinet as soon as possible and shore up the Canada-U.S. relations team by showing he’s reorienting toward focusing on the Trump relationship.

“He needs to signal to his cabinet, to caucus and to the country that he remains firmly in control of his government,” she said, adding that Trudeau must also replace the ministers who announced months ago they will not seek reelection.

The behind-the-scenes chatter in Ottawa political circles about a looming cabinet shuffle as soon as Wednesday died down after Freeland abruptly resigned from cabinet on Monday.

The Liberals may now be waiting for the heat to die down before moving to shuffle their front bench and get new ministers in place to deal with the incoming Trump administration, which is threatening to wallop Canada with 25 per cent tariffs.

Variyan said Trudeau should not wait.

“If he can bring that renewed sense of stability and being in control of his government…he has a real shot of being able to hold the government together until spring,” she said.

Otherwise, caucus members and cabinet ministers could start “peeling off much earlier than that” and parliament could collapse “not long after they come back at the end of January.”

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Trudeau steps down

The House of Commons has downed tools for the holidays and won’t return until Jan. 27 – after Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration.

If Trudeau is going to step down, that gives him until mid-to-late January to take his proverbial “walk in the snow,” as his father famously did, to mull passing on the reins of Liberal leadership.

Former Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan said what happens next is all in Trudeau’s hands.

“I honestly believe that one of the reasons he’s hanging on is because he’s so far behind in the polls and he doesn’t want to be seen as having been chased out. But all it’s doing is fuelling this environment where he’s looking like he’s being chased out.”

Van Loan sees Trudeau proroguing and stepping down in January as the most likely scenario, though not one set in stone.

“He’ll stay around as leader until his successor is chosen and the party goes about selecting his successor in, I don’t know, late May, June,” Van Loan suggested, then “nothing happens until there’s a new leader in place.”

The party’s national board of directors would name an interim leader until the party grassroots elects a new one, and set a date for the race.

In this case, the Liberals would have to really hustle. The party would likely look to book a space and run a race in far less time than past leadership contests allowed.

Party brass would also have to deal with running the race under significant rule changes ushered in under Trudeau that radically expanded the Liberal party base to anyone who wants to register to become a member, making it more than just an exclusive club of paying, card-carrying members.

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Trudeau stays on

Trudeau could attempt to continue on as normal and try to last until the scheduled fall election date, when the Liberals might stand a better chance at the polls if cost of living and other affordability matters improve.

Trudeau can remain in charge since his party did not adopt a formal mechanism to oust its leader, as the Conservative party did when it adopted the Reform Act, which ultimately led to the Tory caucus dumping former leader Erin O’Toole. But he would face a much harder time keeping his hold on the position if a large enough number of his own caucus called on him to resign.

In this scenario, the governing party is banking on waiting it out as long as possible, hoping voters become less disgruntled with the Trudeau brand.

For that to work, the New Democrats would have to continue to prop up the government throughout the duration of the current minority Parliament.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh demanded this week that Trudeau step down, and his House Leader Peter Julian threatened in an interview on CBC’s Power and Politics to bring down the government in a confidence vote in February or March if Trudeau remains at the helm.

That could bring an election around March, if the party follows through.

House Leader Karina Gould pointed out in question period Tuesday that the NDP has supported the Liberals through every confidence vote of the fall sitting, even as recently as last week.

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Snap election

The next federal election is currently scheduled for late October, but the Trudeau government could fall on confidence votes in the House of Commons and trigger one sooner.

Those votes happen on the spending matters, such as the budget and fall economic statement, and the government has a lot of control over when those votes happen.

But the opposition can put forward its own confidence votes on special calendar days called opposition days or supply days – which the government has some flexibility in scheduling. As many as seven of those have to happen by late March, according to the House of Commons standing orders. They do not have to be confidence motions.

A winter, spring or summer election could happen if the Conservatives, Bloc and NDP vote down the government on any of these votes – but they all need to gang up at once to do it.

Once that happens, the campaign period must be at least 37 days but no more than 51 days, according to an Elections Canada backgrounder. Election day must always fall on a Monday.

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Prorogue

In any of the scenarios Trudeau faces, he could choose to hit the pause button on Parliament by proroguing. He could make the request to the governor general while the House is sitting, or when it is adjourned for recess.

A prorogation would allow the government to avoid confidence votes that could topple the government and trigger an early election.

And it would buy enough time for a leadership race if Trudeau steps down, but it would have to be a short one.

Thomas Hall, a former House of Commons procedural clerk, said there’s a time limit that comes with that move. Parliament would have to return after a few months to continue supplying the government with funds to keep the lights on.

That’s because once in the past, the late former prime minister Brian Mulroney had prorogued Parliament before it was supposed to return in February in 1989, leaving it shuttered from December through April, and leaving routine spending approvals to the governor general through signing special warrants.

Former Liberal MP Peter Milliken decided that created a political accountability problem, so he championed a private members’ bill that forces parliament to return to vote on supplying the government with funds.

Milliken’s successful play to change the rules back in 1996 means Trudeau cannot prorogue to avoid an election throughout the entire spring sitting.

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Privilege debate

The House of Commons has been gridlocked throughout most of fall, unable to pass most of the government’s legislation because of a privilege debate and filibuster over the release of documents in an ethics/spending scandal.

“If they prorogue now, any new session they start, there would be no privilege filibuster debate. That would be over with,” said Hall. The opposition could also attempt to revive that debate.

Hall thinks Speaker Greg Fergus made a misstep in handling this debate, and that he could have recently brought it to a swift end had he made a different set of procedural moves in the House.

“Unless they change the rules, then they’re going to be back in the same position pretty quickly,” he said, meaning the spring sitting could wind up just as gridlocked as the fall.

“In order to not have more opposition days where (the government) will be defeated, and where they will still face the privilege motion, I think they have no alternative but to prorogue.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 17, 2024.