Opinion: Liberals limp out of confrontation without closure

Is the Liberal rebellion over? What was the outcome? A lot of the people who were in the caucus room don’t really know.

Will Liberal MPs have another internal conversation about whether Justin Trudeau should step down? “Oh, I would think there’s a second and a third and a fourth and a fifth,” Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski said just outside Parliament.

“I mean, it’s an ongoing conversation, right? The leadership. I don’t think there ought to be an expectation that everything is absolutely settled today.”

The meeting that was intended to bring the leadership question to a head didn’t actually bring it to a head. The MPs, including Mr. Trudeau, strode out gamely. But they’re all limping away without closure.

Views were exchanged. Several MPs got up to the microphone to express their concern about Mr. Trudeau’s continued leadership, and in some cases to say that the party can’t win an election with him as leader. They were backed by a letter signed by 24 MPs. Several others got up to back Mr. Trudeau. The PM listened, and even one dissident noted that he did so without creating tension, and promised to reflect.

What comes next? There’s a request for a response next week but it’s not at all clear what that means. A lot of MPs came out with happy talking points about being united in believing they have to fight Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. It’s a kind of unity. But there is still that minor point of disagreement among Liberals about who will lead the Liberal Party.

Twenty-four MPs isn’t enough to force the Prime Minister to resign. But it is enough to be big trouble for Mr. Trudeau’s leadership.

Those MPs had tried to keep the effort secret for weeks, and there was no machine behind it. If there were 24 MPs this week, there could be a dozen more in a week or two. If more people come forward, the PM will have a hard time claiming the majority of his MPs want him to lead. Already, there’s a group called Code Red saying it speaks on behalf of grassroots Liberals that is calling for a secret-ballot vote on Mr. Trudeau’s leadership.

Presumably, the Prime Minister will try to weather the storm and stay on. But even so, Mr. Trudeau is already a contested leader. Voters questioning if he has stuck around too long can now see him digging in despite the open objections of two dozen Liberal MPs.

And all this is happening as the time to an election is running out.

In fact, some of Mr. Trudeau’s supporters argue that it’s too late for divisions over the leadership. But Mr. Trudeau’s team hasn’t been known for getting ahead of it.

One of the more comical things about Wednesday’s caucus meeting is that the party’s newly appointed campaign director, Andrew Bevan, waited in the room to make a presentation about election-campaign plans, but time ran out.

That’s funny because anxious Liberal MPs had screamed all summer for some sign that Mr. Trudeau’s team had a plan to dig out of the hole the party is in, and to compete in the next election. The campaign director’s post sat vacant for five weeks after the previous campaign chief, Jeremy Broadhurst, quit. Mr. Bevan was suddenly appointed after reports of a caucus mutiny emerged, and one suspects it was to show Liberal MPs that there is someone on it.

In June, when the Liberals lost a by-election in the stronghold of Toronto-St. Paul’s, nine Liberal MPs called for an in-person caucus meeting, but were rebuffed. “We should have had this conversation in June,” said New Brunswick Liberal MP Wayne Long, who had called then for the Prime Minister to step down.

Everyone is running late in Liberal land. Mr. Trudeau is late to reassure his backbench MPs that he has a winning plan. Backbench MPs left it late to raise their fears that Mr. Trudeau is leading them to certain doom. Even now, it hasn’t really come to a head.

So there will be more rounds. And for Mr. Trudeau, it’s too late to completely shake the effects. If he stays, as he has said he will, he will carry them with him into the next election.