Freeland brushes off 'revolt' within Liberal caucus

'I am absolutely confident that the vast majority of members of our caucus support the Prime Minister,' Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters.

Amid a brewing caucus revolt, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland remains “absolutely confident” that most Liberal MPs support Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as leader. A group of backbench MPs discussed asking him to step down this month.

“Deputy prime minister, how serious is this threat to the prime minister's leadership?” a reporter asked Freeland during an unrelated Friday press conference. “The Prime Minister has my full support … as leader of our party. He intends to lead us into the next election,” she replied.

“Have you had any conversations with these concerned MPs? The reporter asked. “I have a lot of respect for every single member of our caucus,” she replied. “We are a government because we have the plurality of hard-working individual people who worked hard to get elected.”

As first reported by CTV News, some Liberal MPs intend to confront the prime minister on October 23, the date of their next caucus meeting. 

At a separate press conference, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly encouraged MPs to express their grievances with the prime minister himself next Wednesday. “He will be the one deciding,” she said, when asked about Trudeau’s future as party leader. 

There is no mechanism for the caucus to force him to step down as leader. He remains committed to staying on, amid calls for an early election.

Half a dozen MPs, who spoke with CTV on the condition of anonymity, said they heard “about 30 people are signing” a letter formalizing the resignation calls. 

Disgruntled Liberal MPs have held several closed-door meetings since the shocking Toronto-St. Paul's byelection loss in June.

The deputy prime minister acknowledged the Liberal caucus is home to “a wide range” of views. “Our caucus is our government, and I take that very seriously. I take the perspectives of each caucus member extremely seriously,” she iterated.

“I am absolutely confident that the vast majority of members of our caucus support the prime minister,” Freeland told reporters.

The governing Liberals trail the Conservatives by some 20 percentage points, according to a CBC News poll tracker.

The Liberal share of the popular vote has dwindled each term Trudeau has remained in office. Since winning its lone majority government in 2015, the party has lost 1.4 million votes, from 6.9 million to 5.5 million.

A fall election has looked increasingly more likely as opposition parties muse about bringing down the government in a confidence vote. 

The Conservatives are threatening to hold back Parliament with several non-confidence motions expected for the fall. Prime Minister Trudeau survived a non-confidence vote last month by a margin of 211 to 120 on a warning it may be a short reprieve. 

The Bloc Québécois earlier said it would bring down Trudeau if two of its bills do not become law by October 29. “This is a limited time offer,” said Bloc House Leader Alain Therrien.

New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh on September 4 formally repudiated a 2022 Supply And Confidence Agreement with cabinet, after the latter reneged the agreement last December 31. The Trudeau government has yet to implement a national pharmacare and dental plan.

In the meantime, the prime minister faces imminent plans to shuffle his cabinet after four cabinet ministers announced they would not run again in the next election.

A government source said each minister had “highly personal reasons” for not running again, without mention of Trudeau’s leadership. One of those ministers, Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal, confirmed that was the case. 

“It does not mean that I've lost confidence in our party or the prime minister,” said Vandal, who spoke at the same press conference as Freeland.

“In fact, I'm very confident that the polls are going to tighten up as time goes on, and I think it would be foolish to vote against our party,” he continued.

At least two Liberal MPs from Quebec are maintaining their support for Trudeau. MPs Gudie Hutchings and Joanne Thompson reaffirmed their support for him.

At an announcement in Calgary, Liberal MP George Chahal also rallied behind Trudeau when asked about the brewing caucus revolt.

“Well, the prime minister is Mr. Trudeau and the prime minister has done a lot of great work for our nation since being elected in 2015 and he will continue to lead us until he decides or chooses that he does not want to,” he said. 

Chahal intends to run in the next federal election.

Alex Dhaliwal

Calgary Based Journalist

Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.

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