Summary
Jagmeet Singh announced plans to introduce a motion to topple Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government.
Singh’s announcement comes after a difficult week for Trudeau, who is facing growing calls to resign from his own Liberal Party following the exit of his most senior cabinet minister.
The move marks a turn for the NDP leader, whose centre-left party helped prop up Trudeau’s minority government in exchange for support on their shared political priorities.
This is monumentally stupid. Does he think he can take the #2 spot, let alone #1?
He’ll still be number 3, but his rug-pull will definitely change the outcome of this binary choice.
The choice is between elections ASAP and elections in October, which is 4 years from the last election.
The political calculation is therefore how much do you let the Liberals get completely eviscerated. Arguably, the longer Trudeau leads a lame-duck, ineffective and generally very unpopular government, the stronger the Conservatives will emerge. So cut your losses now, and hope for a Conservative minority government…
It’s difficult to call for Trudeau to resign and also vote that you have confidence in Trudeau as a leader. Obviously he doesn’t want to hand the government to the Conservatives but supporting Trudeau wasn’t winning any favours either.
He probably believes (correctly or not I can’t say) that his party can get more seats if he votes no, and either way an ineffectual leader can’t keep populists out of office, so how long Trudeau spends in office is meaningless.
