The commitment to neoliberal austerity has doomed the political centre to collapse, and it is unable to confront reactionary rage. Canada is just one example, argues John Clarke

With his personal unpopularity compounding the deep problems faced by his government, Justin Trudeau has announced that he will step down as prime minister and Liberal Party leader. However, while Trudeau’s brand of image conscious and dubiously progressive politics has lost its appeal, it is highly unlikely that the Liberals will regain support simply by throwing him overboard.

When they took power in 2015, with Trudeau as their leader, the Liberals enjoyed great popularity but this soon went over to a long process of declining credibility. They currently lack a parliamentary majority and have had to rely on the support of the New Democratic Party (NDP) to stay in power.

‘Internal battles’

When he stood in front of his official residence in Ottawa, on 6 January and announced his decision, Trudeau had to acknowledge the divisions within Liberal ranks that underlay his departure. He noted that he has been forced to ‘fight internal battles’ and suggested that these had created a situation where ‘I cannot be the best option’ to lead the Liberals into another election. Based on this, Trudeau will depart once a ‘robust’ and ‘nationwide’ leadership contest has been conducted.

There have been grumblings in the Liberal ranks for a long time, but recent developments brought the weaknesses of Trudeau’s leadership into an impossibly sharp focus. As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, he has been making wild statements suggesting that territorial expansion might be part of ‘making America great again’. This has included the suggestion that Canada could become a US state and, based on assertions that the country’s border with the US is insecure, he has threatened to place a 25% tariff on Canadian goods. Given the vast volume of trade between the two countries, this is no small matter.

Amidst allegations that Trudeau wasn’t responding effectively to these threats, war broke out within the Liberal leadership. Deputy leader and finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, stormily resigned from the cabinet when Trudeau tried to move her to another ministry. She promptly issued a letter accusing him of ‘costly political gimmicks’ on the economy and suggesting that she was ‘at odds’ with him over how to deal with Trump.

By this point, the move to oust Trudeau had reached serious levels and, as the CBC reported, at ‘least two dozen individual MPs and several regional caucuses — including Atlantic Canada, Quebec and Ontario — have called for him to step down since before the holiday break.’ After a suitable process of reflection, Trudeau decided that his resignation was the only alternative to open rebellion and impossible levels of discord.

Parliament was due to reconvene on 27 January and, with NDP support now withdrawn, a rapid vote to bring down the government would have been inevitable. This has been delayed by proroguing parliament until 24 March, buying the Liberals a little time to reorganise their ranks for the final reckoning.

The degree to which the legitimacy of the Liberal government has been decimated is quite remarkable. The Angus Reid polling firm predicts that we will soon see ‘the worst electoral performance in the [Liberal] party’s 157-year history.’ The Liberals and Conservatives have long been the leading parliamentary parties in Canada and it is highly unusual for one of them not to form the Official Opposition, in the event of electoral defeat. This time, however, it has been suggested that the Liberals are ‘in danger of falling into third, behind the Bloc Québécois, or perhaps even fourth, behind the NDP in the seat count.’ This could even mean ‘the Liberals could end up losing official party status, unable to secure the 12 seats needed in the House of Commons.’

Though there are specific features to the Liberal fall from grace that relate to Canadian politics, this development is in line with some significant international trends. Parties that seek a place at the political centre, whether they are liberal or social-democratic formations, are finding it increasingly difficult to govern without experiencing dramatic declines in support. They are also proving to be increasingly incapable of offering a viable alternative to right-wing challengers. That is certainly the case in the present Canadian context.

Reactionary rage

The Conservative Party of Canada has experienced its own internal turmoil, going back over a long period. Very much like the US Republicans, an internal war has been waged between a more moderate wing of the party leadership and a rightward moving section that has drawn on a mood of reactionary rage within its political base. As I explained in an article I wrote for Counterfire in 2022, the election of Pierre Poilievre as Conservative leader at that time constituted a decisive victory for the hard-right populist current with the party.

Since he took over, Poilievre has moved the Conservative Party decisively to the right and embraces a uncompromisingly reactionary style of political leadership. At this point, it seems virtually inevitable that he will soon have the opportunity to put his ideas into effect. The latest polling results, which are in line with long-term trends, suggest that the Conservatives enjoy the support of 47% of voters compared to a mere 20% for the Liberals and they seem poised to win a decisive parliamentary majority.

As he prepares for the opportunity to settle accounts with the Liberals, Poilievre has offered a clear sense of how he will conduct himself once he holds power. He recently conducted a very extensive interview with the infamous right-wing ‘public intellectual’ Jordan Peterson in which the distance he has travelled from the respectable and relatively moderate conservatism of an earlier period was glaringly apparent.

Poilievre covered a range of policy questions, spelling out his commitment to unbridled fossil-fuel extraction and a programme of massive austerity, deregulation and privatisation. He dismissed the notion that racism was an issue that needed to be tackled in Canada and denounced ‘this obsession with race that wokeism has reinserted’.

Most strikingly, Poilievre attacked his Liberal opponents in a way that is utterly in line with the absurd accusations that Trump has thrown at the Democratic Party. He suggested that Trudeau embraces ‘an extremely radical ideology’ and that he has imposed ‘basically authoritarian socialism’ on Canada. He stressed that his alternative ‘free enterprise’ approach will be put into effect without delays or compromises. Like Trump, he will put a premium on moving rapidly and spectacularly as soon as he takes office.

As I write this article, the race for a new Liberal leader is about to start and, rather predictably, the leading contenders represent all that has made this government so massively unpopular. Chrystia Freeland is poised to announce her bid and she, as Liberal finance minister, is deeply associated with the government’s track record. Despite her recent falling out with Trudeau, she will be very hard-pressed to present herself as a critical voice or a fresh face.

Perhaps even more jarringly, Mark Carney is emerging as the dubious ‘outsider’ in the race. He has served as the governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England and he is a veritable apostle of ‘inclusive capitalism’. As he put it in a speech he delivered in 2014, for ‘markets to sustain their legitimacy, they need to be not only effective but also fair.’

The grandees of the Liberal Party establishment might think that Trudeau’s finance minister and a central banker who prattles about compassion and social responsibility as he delivers austerity can be packaged as representatives of a rejuvenated party. However, both Freeland and Carney personify the ‘smug elites’ that right-wing populists love to attack. As such, it is massively unlikely that the post-Trudeau Liberals will escape severe electoral punishment.

Biden could only produce an interlude between two Trump presidencies and an ‘historical legacy of failure.’ Starmer, having so ruthlessly purged the Labour left, can offer no alternatives to the agenda of the right and can’t even muster the courage to fend off the attacks coming from Elon Musk. In the same way, the Liberal government in Canada has disappointed those who hoped it might steer a progressive course, while opening itself up to attack from the Poilievre Conservatives.

The present volatile period has produced a crisis for the parties of the political centre. They offer no solutions to address declining living standards and insecurity and their legitimacy is greatly diminished, even as an emboldened right peddles its hateful and reactionary remedies with confidence and flourish. In this regard, the downfall of Justin Trudeau and the impending collapse of the Liberal government are signs of the times.

Discredited liberalism, as a supposed ‘lesser evil,’ has shown that it can provide no effective alternative to the dangerous rise of the right. Clearly, such opposition can only come from the political left and from our unions and social movements. There can be no doubt that the impending government of Pierre Poilievre will soon provide us with every reason to mobilise and fight back.