Justin Trudeau has made no bones about his intention to lead Canada's Liberal Party in the next election, which is scheduled for 2025 unless one is triggered earlier, which would not unduly surprise me. He even doubled down on this decision after the recent news of the strange separation agreement with his wife.
But... the Liberals are in a hole as regards public opinion. After 8 years in power, you could argue it just couldn't be any other way. At this point in any administration, the ruling party has pretty much always managed to piss enough people off, and become so blasé and entitled, that the long-suffering general public are always going to be ready for a change.
At any rate, the polls are telling us that, however abhorrent Pierre Poilievre may be, the Liberals are currently trailing the Conservatives by a full 10 percentage points. So, short of a merger with the NDP, who are polling a respectable and robust third, which is (unfortunately) not on the cards, Trudeau is not going to win an election any time soon. And it is my contention that Trudeau himself is the main reason for that.
A reasonably recent poll, at the end of June, looked at how happy voters are with the political party leaders and, perhaps not unexpectedly, it seems they would prefer to see both Trudeau and, to a lesser extent, Poilievre, replaced as leaders of their parties.
53% of respondents were in favour of Justin Trudeau being replaced as leader, while 51% were in favour of Pierre Poilievre being replaced. However, when we look at in-party support, the picture changes substantially: 58% of Liberal supporters want to see Trudeau replaced, while only 29% of Conservatives want to see Poilievre gone.
So, how would the Liberals be faring without Trudeau? Hard to say. I haven't seen any hypothetical polls on that. But, given that we know how they are faring with him, surely a change of leadership is worth a shot.
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