ANALYSIS: Why Challenges to Trudeau’s Leadership Aren’t Anything Like the Chrétien/Martin Era

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stands with former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien at a reception celebrating 25 years since Mr. Chrétien was elected in his first term as prime minister, in Ottawa on Oct. 25, 2018. The Canadian Press/Fred Chartrand

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau so far appears to have weathered the storm after the surprising June byelection upset in the longtime Liberal riding of Toronto–St. Paul’s. He has said he is committed to staying on as prime minister, and there are a number of factors working in his favour.

Back in the early 2000s, Paul Martin managed to displace Jean Chrétien as prime minister at a time when the Liberal Party had a comfortable majority in the House of Commons and had up to that point faced a fractured opposition.

Comparatively speaking, the outlook is more dire for Mr. Trudeau, whose party is lagging the Conservatives by double digits in the polls, not to mention losing a byelection in a riding held by the Liberals for more than three decades.

But the opposition to Mr. Trudeau’s leadership within the party has been very subdued compared to what Mr. Chrétien faced as he similarly neared the 10-year mark into his premiership.

Former prominent Liberals who were active under previous leaders said the situation would have turned out differently back then.

For one, there is no clear contender openly gunning for Mr. Trudeau’s spot, while there was little doubt about the intentions of Mr. Martin, who had a faction backing him.

“I think that’s a very major factor,” Stephen LeDrew, who served as Liberal Party president from 1998 to 2003, told The Epoch Times in an interview.

The names of a handful of current cabinet ministers have been floated as having leadership aspirations, but the likes of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland or Housing Minister Sean Fraser have not publicly signalled their intentions.

An Abacus poll released on July 15 suggests Canadians are not very familiar with cabinet ministers and potential contenders, with 61 percent of respondents being unable to name Ms. Freeland when shown a photo. It goes up to 96 percent for Mr. Fraser and 93 percent for former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, whose name has often come up as a potential contender.

But beyond lack of any serious contenders, Mr. LeDrew says the most important factor is that the party did away with having a leadership review mechanism once Mr. Martin became prime minister.

“Somebody may be ready, but it’s like shooting at a phantom,” he said. “The only mechanism would be to have a wholesale rebellion in the caucus—that ain’t gonna happen.”

Calls within the caucus for Mr. Trudeau to step aside that the public has learned of have been scant, aside from a letter from MP Wayne Long asking for as much, but it received little endorsement or response from his colleagues. Requests to hold an in-person caucus meeting before the end-of-summer retreat have also not been heeded by the party leadership.

Celebrity Leader

After the heavy loss of becoming a third-place party in the 2011 election, it was in large part thanks to Justin Trudeau’s celebrity status that the Liberals were able to win the 2015 election.

The MPs who won their seats in that election are cognizant of this, says Dan McTeague, who worked as a staffer in the Pierre Trudeau government in the 1980s and served as a Liberal MP for 14 years.

This is another factor behind the muted response from Liberal MPs and the absence of a clear contender to take over if Mr. Trudeau were to step down, Mr. McTeague says.

“They’ve read the room and realized that after 9–10 years, they won with the wave and they’re going to lose with the wave.”

The building of a party around the name of a celebrity leader also brings its own limitations, Mr. McTeague says, as that subdues the chance for different voices, including the party grassroots, to have an opportunity to be heard.

This in turn impacts the extent to which party grassroots are engaged in the party, as well as chances of competing ideas, and therefore leadership contenders, being fostered.

More Cutthroat in the Past

Mr. Chrétien stepped down as prime minister in the fall of 2003 after losing support from caucus. Pierre Trudeau resigned after his famous “walk in the snow” in 1984, before Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservatives handed the Liberals a crushing defeat in September that year.

Internal party competition was more cutthroat back then, says Kevin Gaudet, who runs Bright Point Strategy and previously headed opposition research for Preston Manning.

Mr. Gaudet said that in his days with Mr. Manning’s Reform Party, he would benefit from the “warfare” between Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Martin, as the two factions would leak internal information to him.

“I used to get brown envelopes about each of their respective teams from each other,” he said. “It was ugly.”

Nowadays, Mr. Gaudet says modern political parties are more controlled by leaders, and that’s particularly true for the Liberal Party, which again lowers the chance of rivals for leadership getting prominence.

“I don’t think anyone from Chrétien’s wedding party was in cabinet, let alone a number of them,” said Mr. Gaudet, alluding to Immigration Minister Marc Miller and Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan, whose presence at Mr. Trudeau’s wedding has been captured in a widely circulated photo.

“That drives a completely different degree of loyalty.”