Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says there’s a backlash against progressive policies, and that, despite pressure, he is staying on as leader to ensure continued focus on such issues as diversity and climate change.
“At this time of backlash against progressive policies of inclusion and diversity, you know, are we going to double down on making sure that everyone gets to participate or play?” Trudeau said in an
interview with Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith on his podcast program “Uncommons” released on Oct. 1.
Trudeau has been facing pressure to step down by current and past Liberal MPs as the party continues to slide in the polls, with the Conservatives sustaining a 20-point lead over the Liberals in
national polls in recent months and after the upset loss in two byelections that were previously Liberal strongholds.
The calls for Trudeau to step down reached new
heights over the past few days as a group of Liberal MPs have reportedly banded together to oust him as leader. Trudeau has so far not publicly commented on the latest attempt, but Trade Minister Mary Ng told reporters on Oct. 11 that she has full confidence in his leadership.
Maintaining the Policy Path
In his
past comments about whether he will remain as leader, Trudeau said he needs to stay on to ensure the country continues with policies he characterizes as progressive, such as climate change legislation, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and assistance programs his government has brought in. In his latest comments, he insisted that’s the right path for his party to take despite the current poll numbers, and that’s where the fight needs to be.
“The big thing is to make sure that Canadians understand that the choice they get to make in the next election, about the kind of country we are really matters, and that’s the work we’re going to continue to do,” Trudeau said in September after his party lost the byelection in Montreal’s Lasalle-Émard-Verdun, which had previously been a Liberal stronghold.
In his interview with Erskine-Smith, Trudeau communicated the same line of thought as his September comment, but his tone was more like the tone he uses when speaking to an ideologically aligned audience rather than the general public, perhaps because the host is his own caucus member.
“We have worked so hard for so many years to get Canada to a position where the coming decades are going to be so good for us that the idea that a short-term mistake—like electing a Conservative government that wants to bring us back to some past that never actually existed and give up on climate change and give up on inclusion—like all these things, it just would be so devastating to everything that we have been able to build,” he said.
When asked about the pressure to step down as leader and why he thinks he’s the right person to lead the Liberals to victory in the next election, Trudeau told Erskine-Smith that his priorities for Canada are a matter of principle, and not something to be abandoned due to bad polling.
“Let’s look at people who are saying, ‘Oh, I’m not sure.’ Would they be saying that if I was 10 points ahead in the polls right now?” he said.
“Are there a lot of Liberals who are thinking that Justin’s priorities aren’t in the right place, or Justin doesn’t have the fight in him, or Justin is wrong to be continuing to believe in protecting the environment and growing the economy and protecting women’s rights and stuff? In terms of the substance of what we’re doing, I think that’s pretty much the fight.”
He added, “Do I still have the understanding of what this is going to take to win the next election? Absolutely. Better than just about anyone else, because I have been fighting through crises and fighting against Conservative opponents who are trying to undo this and bring Canadians backwards and polarize them.”
In June, Liberal MP Chandra Arya, while emphasizing he still has confidence in Trudeau’s leadership,
said publicly that Trudeau has taken the party “too far left of centre.”
Sen. Percy Downe, who was chief of staff to Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and was appointed by him to the Senate,
told the Toronto Star in June that Trudeau has taken the party too far to the left, and pointed out how Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault
said in the House of Commons in November 2023 that he is a “proud socialist.”
Direction for the Country
Trudeau has often emphasized his focus on a “progressive” direction for Canada in his public remarks.
In
September, amid demands by the Bloc Québécois to back its private members’ bills in exchange for supporting the minority Liberal government in confidence votes, Trudeau said he’s going to continue to “work with any progressives in this House that want to deliver for Canadians in concrete ways.”
The federal government has
brought in a number of policies and pieces of legislation focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including a carbon tax and policies to transition away from oil and gas.
The focus on climate change issues has also been
seen in other government departments and agencies not related to the environment, such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which in 2021 evaluated the risk factors of climate change, and the Public Health Agency of Canada, which released a report on the impacts of climate change on health in 2022.
As well, the government has had a major
focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives since taking power in 2015. This has included funding the “
Anti-Racism Strategy,” whose aim is “Changing Systems, Transforming Lives” through initiatives such as gaining “a better understanding of health inequalities to improve equity in health care access,” enhancing “legal support for equity-impacted communities,” and establishing the
Black Entrepreneurship Program to provide loan funds to black-led businesses.
The focus on DEI is present in other governmental departments and policy areas as well. For example, Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy talks of the need for undertaking “inclusive social, economic and environmental efforts” in the region.
Competition for the Progressive Vote
The Trudeau Liberals brand themselves as the more practical progressive party as opposed to their national competitors on that front, the NDP.“There’s a serious credibility to what we do that oftentimes sets us apart from the NDP, who might have shared priorities but don’t have the same ability to deliver—not only electorally but in planning,” Erskine-Smith said.
Whether Erskine-Smith’s comments about Liberal versus NDP electoral fortunes are true or not federally, on a provincial level, in several provinces the Liberals have no or very few legislators, while the NDP, which has historically been the party on the left, has been taking the progressive votes in contending with the main right-leaning party. This is currently most evident in provinces west of Ontario.
In ending his party’s supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberals that kept them in power in exchange for bringing in key legislation such as dental care and pharmacare programs, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh
said on Sept. 4 that the Liberals are “too beholden to corporate interests” and that only an NDP government can “stop Conservative cuts.”
Meanwhile, Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre, who has
made “axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, and stop the crime” his main slogan, says only his party can bring prosperity to Canada, and that Canadians have
lost confidence in “Trudeau and his radical left NDP-Liberal coalition.” In his public messaging when touting his policies, Poilievre generally doesn’t use ideological terms, instead using phrases such as bringing back “
common sense.”
Backlash Against DEI, Carbon Tax
Several multinational corporations have recently halted or curbed their DEI initiatives.
Toyota Motor Corp.
told its U.S. employees on Oct. 3 that it would no longer support Pride parades and other initiatives that fall outside of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce-focused initiatives.
Prior to that,
Caterpillar Inc. in September rolled out new guidelines refocusing the company’s employee programs on core business goals, saying all training “must be focused on our business and designed to foster high performance and execution of our enterprise strategy.”
Harley-Davidson
said in August that its employee training programs going forward will be business-focused and free from “socially motivated” content.
A survey-based
study published by the Macdonald Laurier Institute in February
said that two-thirds of Canadians oppose “cultural socialist” attitudes. The study defines cultural socialism as the belief in “equal results and protection from emotional harm for minority groups.”
As for the carbon tax, a
survey by Angus Reid in November 2023 indicated 56 percent of Canadians are opposed to it. As well, amid declining support for the tax and the affordability crisis, B.C.’s NDP Premier David Eby
said in September that if the feds remove the requirement for provinces to have a carbon tax scheme, he would also remove it in B.C., although his province was the first to adopt the scheme voluntarily in 2008.
