BC’s Opposition Leader says the impending resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau marks a turning point not just for federal politics, but this province as well.
Trudeau announced Monday, Jan. 6 that he had asked the president of the Liberal Party to start the process of looking for his successor and will resign once a new leader is chosen.
Trudeau said Gov.-Gen Mary Simon had agreed to prorogue Parliament until March 24 to facilitate the race. That will mean there will be no interim leader or interim prime minister.
That move puts opposition plans to introduce a non-confidence motion to bring down the minority government in limbo for the time being.
Gary Wilson, chair of the political science department at the University of Northern BC, told The Citizen the Liberals are going through a similar process that the Conservatives did in 1993, when Brian Mulroney stepped down with plunging approval ratings and an impending election.
“Political leaders have a shelf life. They can’t stay in office forever,” Wilson said. “They have to know when the time is to go and I think Trudeau sort of saw the writing on the wall there and made the decision to leave, giving his party a chance to get new leadership and hopefully, (a chance) for them to at least fight the next election and not be decimated like the Conservatives were in 1993.”
In a media release issued after Trudeau's announcement, BC Conservative Leader John Rustad said Trudeau’s resignation means that BC Premier David Eby is losing “his closest ally in Ottawa.”
“He can no longer point fingers at the federal government to justify radical policies like the carbon tax, emissions caps, safe supply, decriminalization, and extreme identity politics, which British Columbians simply do not support,” Rustad said in the statement.
When Eby’s government wanted to launch experiments with the decriminalization of illicit drugs in BC, Health Canada allowed an exemption from some federal laws to allow it to happen.
This past September, in the lead-up to the provincial election, Eby issued a statement saying that his government would remove the carbon tax on individuals but not industrial polluters if the federal carbon backstop was repealed.
Under leader Pierre Poilievre, the opposition federal Conservatives have been vocal opponents of both the decriminalization experiment and the carbon tax.
Speaking to The Citizen on Monday, Jan. 6, Rustad said that under the federal Liberals, British Columbia has been on a decline towards being a “have-not province” and the country has become a “have-not country.”
He said the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has projected Canada to have the worst GDP growth of any of its member nations until 2060.
A 2023 OECD reported projected member nations’ potential gross domestic product per capita between 2020-30 and 2030-60. Canada is tied for the lowest projected rate in 2020-30 with Italy at 0.7 per cent and South Korea in 2030-60 with 0.8 per cent.
Rustad laid the blame for the province and the country’s economic conditions at environmental policies enacted by the federal and provincial government.
“If you cannot compete with your trading partners, you’re going to lose market share and this is something we saw in spades in our forestry industry,” Rustad said. “It’s something we’re seeing in all of our natural resources. But it’s not just that, it’s also in technology, it’s in any kind of investment and manufacturing.”
He said Eby is a liar and he doesn’t believe anything he says, including the promise to repeal the individual carbon tax. If Eby were to do so, Rustad said, the premier would then double the carbon tax on industry.
Asked if a federal Conservative government would bring in opportunities that the Liberals have not, Rustad said “anything is better than what we currently have in Canada … especially if we can get rid of things like these carbon cap emissions targets.”
As for the prorogation, Rustad said he was disappointed as it means an election will be farther into the future.
From November 2020 to February 2022, former Prince George-Valemount MLA Shirley Bond served as the interim leader for what was then called the BC Liberal Party, now BC United.
Reached by phone on Monday, Jan. 6, Bond said Trudeau’s announcement was “fairly inevitable when you think about the intense internal pressure” that he faced as well as “plummeting poll numbers.”
“There comes a point where if you want your party to have any chance at all in an election in the future, you know you have to do the right thing,” Bond said. “I think many, many Canadians will see this today as the right thing.”
The challenge for the federal Liberals will be to quickly find a leader to shift the momentum and choose that leader in a legitimate process that gives them credibility, she said.
Bond also said there will be a big internal debate over whether to choose someone connected to Trudeau’s legacy — like former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, Transport Minister Anita Anand or Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc — or go with an outsider.
As interim leader, Bond said she was in the position of having to leave space for her eventual replacement to implement their policies while still trying to lead an effective opposition to the government.
By comparison, she said the new federal Liberal leader will need to have a “bold platform that rejuvenates the party.”
When it comes to the local impact, Bond said the recent provincial election shows that there’s a lot of Conservative strength in BC, especially in the north. Both Prince George-area MPs are Conservatives.
A spokesperson for Cariboo-Prince Conservative MP Todd Doherty said the party was leaving comments on Trudeau’s announcement to Poilievre. Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies MP Bob Zimmer didn’t respond to a text message requesting comment.
However, both men commented on the situation on X, formerly Twitter.
“Nothing has changed (with) the Liberals,” Zimmer wrote. “The same Liberal MPs abandoned the Arctic. The same Liberal MPs support the attack on law-abiding firearms owners. The same Liberal MPs have decimated our natural resource sector in Canada. A ‘new’ Liberal leader will not change a thing. Canadians need a carbon tax election now.”
“He’s been missing in action for four weeks,” Doherty wrote. “Now he steps outside & takes a few softball questions, he uses them to blame everyone else but himself & then runs away. Media is lauding him as a martyr. He’s nothing more than a cowardly scandal plagued ideologue. Good riddance.”
While the local Conservative MPs joining the government caucus could lead to opportunities they didn’t have in opposition, Bond said the first priority for an elected official is to represent those that elected them.
Despite the circumstances of Trudeau’s resignation, Bond said he needs to be given credit for his public service.
“He managed two consecutive minority governments,” she said. “I think there is a place for simply recognizing that that’s an important contribution to the country. Whether you agree with what he did or didn’t do or the circumstances that he faced, ultimately public service matters.”
A statement issued by Poilievre was titled “this changes nothing.”
"Canadians desperate to turn the page on this dark chapter in our history might be relieved today that Justin Trudeau is finally leaving,” Poilievre said.
"But what has really changed? Every Liberal MP in power today and every potential Liberal leadership contender fighting for the top job helped Justin Trudeau break the country over the last nine years.”
The federal Opposition Leader said all Liberal MPs supported the federal carbon tax, Trudeau’s government spending, immigration policies and handling of crime.
The final straw, Poilievre alleged, is that they no longer believe Trudeau is the leader to keep them in power.
"The Liberals know how wrong this all is, that’s exactly why they shut down Parliament and paralyze government, all to save their own skins,” he said about the prorogation of Parliament.
A Dec. 30 Angus Reid poll showed the Liberals with just 16 per cent support — not only lower than the 45 per cent support for the Conservatives but also below the 21 per cent support the NDP have.
While UNBC's Wilson said the polls would indicate a Conservative majority in the next election, he cautioned that polls have been wrong before and the results will depend on both who the new Liberal leader is and how well Poilievre campaigns in his first election as party leader.
However, the professor said he doesn’t see Prince George’s status as a federal Conservative bastion changing, calling the city’s two ridings “some of the safest Conservative seats in Canada.”
“Speaking (about) Todd Doherty, I think he’s done a very good job of representing the constituency in Ottawa and putting together private member’s bills that are important,” Wilson said. “I don’t really see this (election) as being significant on a local stage but certainly we could see change happening elsewhere in the country.”
Wilson’s colleague, UNBC political science senior instructor Jason Morris, said there hasn’t been much of a murmur from the federal Liberals, NDP or even the Green Party about recruiting candidates for the next election in this neck of the woods.
He said Trudeau will lack the “moral authority” to speak for the country while his successor is being chosen, especially when it comes to issues like incoming U.S. President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs on Canadian goods.
Should we get a Conservative government in the next election, Morris said there will be a lot of MPs who haven’t had the chance to wield power in quite some time and could represent a steep learning curve.
Unless opposition parties bring down the government in a non-confidence motion, the next federal election must take place on or before Oct. 20.
