
Canadian politics escalating to Netflix-level drama
Last week began with massive changes in the realm of Canadian politics. On the morning of Monday, Jan. 6, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his intention to step down from his position as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) as soon as the party has conducted a leadership review and elected a new leader.
In order to comment on this decision, it seems that there is a need to for an explanation, grounded in fact, of what this decision does and does not mean.
It does not mean that Canada surrendered to the United States of America.
It does not mean that Trudeau is no longer Prime Minister.
It does not necessarily mean that we are about to have a change in government, in terms of which party forms it.
It does mean that, for now, Justin Trudeau remains the Prime Minister of Canada and the leader of the LPC.
Canada has a Westminster parliamentary democracy, modeled after the United Kingdom (UK). It is one of many such democracies across the globe, including but not limited to Australia, New Zealand, and India.
In a Westminster model, the citizens do not directly elect the Prime Minister. Instead, the country is divided into a number of constituencies, and each political party nominates their candidate for each constituency. The number of constituencies corresponds to the number of seats in the parliament, specifically in the House of Commons.
In theory, voters in each constituency vote for the candidate who they feel will best serve their interests. In reality, these votes often happen down the party line, and each of the three major political parties in Canada have what they consider strongholds, constituencies they have almost never lost an election in.
Once the Federal election results are called, the party with a majority of seats in the House of Commons is invited to form the government of the day. In the event that no one party wins enough seats to be form a majority, two or more parties can form a coalition government.
At present, the New Democratic Party (NDP) is helping the LPC secure a majority by supporting their bid for government. This means that should the NDP decide to withdraw support, the LPC would not have enough votes to stay in power. The leader of the party, or the leader of the coalition, is the person who becomes Prime Minister in a Westminster parliamentary democracy. This is why the current Prime Minister is the leader of the LPC, Justin Trudeau.
Now we can talk about the short-term consequences of Trudeau’s recent announcement. As long as Trudeau remains the leader of the LPC, he remains Prime Minister. Because the parliament session has been prorogued (let’s just say “on pause”) until March, his party will not have to face a no-confidence motion until then.
Given Trudeau’s decision to step down, the LPC will have to do the business of seeing which party members are willing to step up to the leadership role, let them campaign internally, and then conduct their own party election to choose a new leader.
As soon as that new leader is chosen, they automatically become the Prime Minister of Canada until the next Federal election. This is the exact mechanism by which the UK recently had Theresa May, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak rise to, and subsequently be removed, from the office of the Prime Minister of the UK.
Now we come to the slightly longer-term implications. The current LPC government do not have enough seats in the parliament to form a majority, and have only been able to do so until now because the NDP has provided them the necessary support. In return, the NDP has pushed for legislation that was subsequently passed. This legislation covers ares the party deeply cares about, such as dental care, and the NDP continues to lobby to get more substantial ones like pharmacare passed. There is nothing wrong, or anti-democratic, about this. The two parties have agreed to collaborate, thus having enough seats to form a majority, and in return NDP has been able to prioritize some of their policy goals. This essentially explains the supply-and-demand agreement between the LPC and the NDP.
Under the Westminster style of democracy, there is a peaceful, democratic way of removing a party from the government and forcing a federal election. This is called the non-confidence motion. As the name implies, this is a motion, usually brought forth by the official opposition, which, in effect, says that the House has lost confidence that the ruling party is up to the task of governance.
If a majority of House members vote in favor of such a motion, the government must begin the process of dissolving. In Canada, this involves the outgoing Prime Minister asking the Governor General to dissolve the Parliament, and calling for a national election no later than fifty days after the initial announcement.
The reason why this is relevant is that the official opposition, a position currently filled by the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) and led by the leader of the official opposition, Pierre Poilievre, has been wanting to call for such a motion for most of the last year.
However, since the LPC and the NDP together have a majority of seats, such a motion was all but guaranteed to fail. Since the resignation of the Deputy Prime Minister and based on recent statements by NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, it seems that the NDP is now willing to back the CPC in calling for a non-confidence motion. This could happen literally in the first hour parliament is back in session, which might give the reader an idea why Trudeau has now ensured that does not happen until at least the last week of March 2025.
Looking back, it is surreal to see how popular Justin Trudeau used to be, and the tremendous mandate the LPC was able to secure in 2015. Looking back, though, this is nothing new. Variations of this cycle have played out for Mulroney, Harper, and others. Perhaps once a party has been in power for almost a decade, without a change in leadership, that leader becomes the scapegoat for everything that went wrong in its decade.
It may be that this isn’t fair, but, in general, life never is. If the worst problem someone has is that staying in power for ten years made people upset, I suspect that they will survive the tragedy. Be that as it may, let us look at what the next few weeks may look like.
Once the LPC has chosen a new leader, and they step up as Prime Minister, there are two possible outcomes. For one, it could be that the new leader inspires renewed confidence and the LPC stays on as the ruling party until later this fall when a federal election must be called. However, it may be that the leadership change makes no difference and LPC loses confidence. This would mean a federal election as early as May 2025.
Whenever the election happens, there remains the possibility that with a new leader, the LPC might be able to either secure a majority, or convince NDP to continue forming a coalition. However, it is also possible that the CPC ends up winning an overwhelming majority, something that would enable them to substantially change the Canadian policy landscape. Right now, all we have is speculation and trepidation, amplified by the fact that the incoming US President keeps posturing about his approach to Canada. But more on that another day. For now, we just wait and see…