It increasingly looks like we're in the end-game of Justin Trudeau's Liberals. They've been far behind in the polls for two years and sinking further despite some last-ditch efforts to right the ship.
Finance Minister Chyrstia Freeland left cabinet on Monday and fellow cabinet member Sean Fraser quit politics. Today, another cabinet shuffle is coming and there's talk of 10 replacements.
There is also this rumour from a Canadian political strategist:
I've seen some better-connected people shut that down but the rumors are everywhere. On BNN on Thursday, former cabinet Liberal John Manley said this:
John Manley says “he wouldn’t be surprised” if Canada’s Liberal party executives met in the near future and asked newly appointed Minister of Finance Dominic LeBlanc to take over as acting leader from embattled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and lead the party into an election.
“You heard it here first – just a hunch that I have,” said Manley, chairman of Jeffries Canada and former finance minister and deputy prime minister under Jean Chrétien, in an interview with BNN Bloomberg on Thursday.
Finally, the Globe and Mail reports this:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is holding discussions with cabinet ministers and senior party leaders about stepping down early in the new year, but close confidants have walked away from these conversations with starkly different conclusions about where he stands.
The Globe also reports that he was prepared to step down on Monday but was talked out of leaving.
I think the best-case scenario for the loonie is that Trudeau calls elections and takes his medicine and we quickly get a new government. If he steps aside and prorogues parliament while the Liberals hold a leadership race, it could stretch the timeline to summer.
Even in the second scenario, I don't see how a different leader would change the outcome given the unpopularity of the Liberals but politics are tough to predict.
The cabinet shuffle will come at 11:30 am ET.
