So, who are the potential LPC leadership aspirants?
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Go, Justin, go!
To the private sector, that is.
As this writer’s last column conclusively showed, the Liberal Party of Canada can only be saved by one thing: Justin Trudeau’s departure.
I still think he’ll go, but nobody else does. So why do I persist in my theory? It’s a Kinsellian™️ rule of politics: the simplest explanation is usually the best one. In this case, every single poll shows Trudeau will be massacred if he sticks around, and he doesn’t want to be massacred. He’ll go.
So, who will replace him? Herewith and hereupon, a handy list of the potential LPC leadership aspirants, and their chances!
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Stephen Guilbeault: He’s an excellent leadership candidate, yes. For the NDP.
Melanie Joly: A comprehensive list of her mistakes and missteps would require a column the size of the old Toronto phone book. Previously, she was hopeless but harmless. But now that she is our foreign affairs minister – and now that she has effectively chosen the Hamas side over Israel’s – she’s no longer harmless. She’s dangerous. She may run, because she allegedly has some Quebec support. But, with Joly as leader, the only thing that’d save the Liberals is endangered species legislation.
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Anita Anand: Trudeau demoted her from National Defence to Treasury Board, which actually works in her favor – anything Trudeau opposes is usually worth supporting. But Anand’s problem is two-fold. One, no one outside her immediate family knows who she is. And, two, she’s too close to the Trudeau blast radius. It’s a paradox: the very thing that lifted her out of obscurity (being in the Trudeau cabinet) is the same thing that dooms her (being in the Trudeau cabinet).
Chrystia Freeland: She, the feminist, stood by and said nothing when Trudeau excommunicated Jody Wilson Raybould and Jane Philpott. She, the supposed details person, has shrugged about Canada’s dramatic economic decline. She, the supposed Minister of Everything, is going to be remembered as the Minister of Do-Nothing. Trudeau in heels, basically.
Sean Fraser: Lots of Trudeau Liberals like him, which is never a good sign. As the minister responsible for housing, he has presided over the biggest housing crisis in the history of Canada. To become leader, you need an accomplishment or two. What are Fraser’s?
Dominic LeBlanc: We worked together in Opposition, so trust me: Dominic isn’t cut out for a lengthy stay in Opposition. As fellow New Brunswicker Frank McKenna once memorably said, Dominic wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth – he was born with silver shovel. The indignities of a decade in Opposition are not for Dom.
A player to be named later: Politics is full of people with more ambition than common sense, so you can expect a small army of politicians you’ve never heard of before to step up when the job becomes vacant. As always, these nobodies will go back to being nobodies. Because they’re nobody.
Francois-Philippe Champagne: My colleague Brian Lilley and I like him, which probably means that he is doomed. He’s a centrist, he’s pro-business, he’s a Jean Chretien fan – all of which makes you wonder how he survived in Justin Trudeau’s government. But survive he has, and he hasn’t made a big mistake yet. Likable, earnest, and from Shawinigan. The one to watch.
Mark Carney: Or, as I like to call him, Michael Ignatieff with a pocket calculator. Carney has got many of Ignatieff’s pluses – brains, charisma, experience running complex things. But he’s got many of Ignatieff’s minuses, too: he uses a ten-dollar words when one-dollar words would suffice. He looks like he’s never had to worry about paying the rent. And, like Ignatieff, he gives off a “just visiting” vibe – ie., that he’s just popping by the colonies to save us from ourselves.
That all said, methinks Carney and Champagne are the contenders – Carney because he’s running from the outside (which is what always works best) and Champagne because he’s an antidote for the many failures of the Trudeau era (which is what people want).
Who’ll win? Who knows.
I know this much: whoever wins needs to be ready for the Opposition benches.
Because that’ll be home for a long time!
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