Liberal cabinet ministers and MPs have yet to accept the inescapable reality that no one is coming to save them.
Even if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decides to resign, there is no Liberal saviour waiting in the wings to revive their political fortunes.
A Nanos Research/CTV News poll of 1,010 Canadian adults, from Nov. 4 to Nov. 6, asked who would be the “most appealing potential candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party?”
The choices were Mark Carney, Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland, former Liberal B.C. premier Christy Clark and Liberal cabinet ministers Melanie Joly, Francois-Philippe Champagne, Anita Anand, Dominic LeBlanc and Sean Fraser.
The winner was “none of the above” by a landslide.
Nationally, more than one in four Canadians surveyed — 26.2% — weren’t impressed with any potential Liberal leader.
This applied to all demographics (Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies and B.C.), among all age groups (18-34, 35-54 and 55-plus) and among both men and women.
The closest to “none of the above” was Mark Carney at 18%, followed by Trudeau and former finance minister Freeland at 11%, with everyone else in single digits.
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What the Liberal cabinet and caucus have yet to figure out is that while a minority keep asking Trudeau — ever so politely — to resign, Trudeau has undermined not just his own leadership as prime minister, but the Liberal brand right across the country.
Anyone associated with Trudeau — including Freeland, who until Monday was widely perceived as Trudeau’s second-in-command — has been tainted by their association with the prime minister.
As poll after poll has found Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives are ahead of the Liberals by double digits, the only thing stranger than Trudeau’s tone-deaf responses has been the fact most of his MPs have been acting like deer caught in the headlights.
They’re so paralyzed by fear about their own political futures — and what the Prime Minister’s Office might do to them if they speak out — that they can barely move or think.
The rationale of Liberals who want Trudeau to resign is that a new leader would be in the best position to stop Poilievre from inflicting enormous damage on the country, apparently unaware that that’s how most voters feel about them.