Quebec Liberal MP Says Her Constituents Want Trudeau to Step Down

Liberal MP Alexandra Mendès delivers a speech in the House of Commons on Oct. 3, 2023. The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick

Liberal MP Alexandra Mendès says “dozens and dozens” of her constituents want Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to resign as party leader.

“My constituents do not see Mr. Trudeau as the person who should lead the party into the next election, and that’s the message that I carry,” Mendès, a Quebec MP, said in a Sept. 9 interview with Radio-Canada.

“I didn’t hear it from two, three people. I heard it from dozens and dozens of people.”

Mendès said that she herself doesn’t want Trudeau to step down.

“If I want to finally meet the expectations of my voters in the slightest, yes, there would have to be a change of leader, but that is not my personal wish,” she said.

The MP for Brossard—La Prairie said many of her Liberal colleagues are hearing the same comments as her.

The Liberals have been trailing in the polls for the past few months, with the Tories gaining a large lead over them. Earlier this year in a surprise development the Liberals lost the byelection in the Toronto—St. Paul’s riding, which had been a Liberal stronghold for three decades.

Another Liberal MP, Wayne Long, has been publicly asking for Trudeau to step down. In a June email that became public, Long wrote to caucus members that the party needed a “new leadership and a new direction.” He later repeated the same assertion in media interviews. Likewise, some former high-profile Liberal MPs, such as former cabinet minister Catherine McKenna, have expressed agreement with the need for a new leader.

However, many senior Liberal MPs have said they want Trudeau to stay on as leader.

“As I have said publicly many times, Prime Minister Trudeau has my full support,” Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said in June.

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc has downplayed calls for Trudeau to step down, saying  byelection results are different than general elections and that the party is focused on the path ahead.

Trudeau himself has said he will be staying on as leader, but that the Toronto—St. Paul’s byelection loss was an opportunity for reflection and that the Liberals have more work to do.

“We’re going to go into this next election, putting a very clear choice for Canadians,” Trudeau said in August.

The party is also facing pressure from other fronts. On Sept. 4, the NDP pulled out of its supply-and-confidence agreement, which provided the Liberal government with assurances of votes of confidence on key issues in exchange for bringing in certain legislation of interest to the NDP. Trudeau reacted by saying his main concern is the priorities of Canadians.

“I’m focused on Canadians, I'll let the other parties focus on politics,” he said during a press conference in Newfoundland and Labrador that day.

The following day, the Liberal Party’s national campaign director Jeremy Broadhurst announced he would be stepping down from the role, saying he could no longer keep up with the physical, mental, and emotional demands of the job.

The party is now preparing for what could be a three-way battle with the Bloc Québécois and the NDP in Montreal’s LaSalle-Émard-Verdun riding, a Liberal stronghold, in the federal byelection scheduled for Sept. 16.

The Liberal caucus is currently meeting in Nanaimo, B.C., for its annual retreat, a few days before Parliament reconvenes after the summer break.

The Canadian Press and Noé Chartier contributed to this report.