Liberal push to oust Trudeau gains momentum in Ontario, CBC says

Thomas Seal and Derek Decloet, Bloomberg News on Dec 22, 2024

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More than 50 Liberal Party members of parliament from Ontario came to a “consensus” during a conference call Saturday that Justin Trudeau must step down as prime minister, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

That would represent about a third of the Liberal caucus, which has 153 seats in Canada’s House of Commons. However, there’s no formal mechanism for Liberal lawmakers to eject their leader or trigger a contest.

While the Liberals comprise the largest group in parliament, they lack a majority and have relied on votes from members of other parties — primarily the New Democratic Party — to pass legislation and stay in power.

Trudeau’s government has been in turmoil since Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland resigned on Dec. 16, saying she and the prime minister were at odds over the direction of the government. Then NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said on Friday that his 25 members will join two other opposition parties in voting to bring down the government early next year.

Trudeau isn’t planning to step down over the winter holiday — he’s spending Christmas in Ottawa before a ski vacation in British Columbia — but will continue to reflect on what to do, according to a separate report in the Globe and Mail newspaper on Sunday, which didn’t identify where it got the information.

“The die is cast, with the Conservatives, Bloc Quebecois and the NDP all saying they want to vote down the current prime minister,” Chandra Arya, an Ottawa-area Liberal lawmaker who participated in the weekend meeting, told CBC. “So there’s no alternative but to have the leadership change now.”

Arya has publicly backed Freeland as an alternative to Trudeau. Others are privately offering her support, the Globe report added, citing an anonymous person.

“We’re in an impossible situation if he stays because he will be the ballot issue,” Anthony Housefather, a lawmaker from the Montreal area, told the broadcaster in a television interview aired Sunday. Arya and Housefather are two of more than 20 Liberal members of parliament to have come out publicly calling on the prime minister to resign after nine years in power.

If Trudeau tries to run in the next election, “we won’t be looking at Liberal programs, we won’t be looking at anything else,” Housefather said. “It’ll all be a question for voters, do they want Justin Trudeau to stay prime minister? I think they’ve clearly come to a conclusion on that.”

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