first reading: the most telling indicator that the liberals remain doomed
even if they're up in the polls, liberal mps are fleeing for the exits unlike any time in the last 30 years
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first reading is a daily newsletter keeping you posted on the travails of canadian politicos, all curated by the national post’s own tristin hopper. to get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.
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despite a spate of new polls showing the liberals as contenders in the next federal election, the party continues to flunk one of the more reliable ottawa indicators of looming defeat: their mps are all leaving.
as of press time, 35 of the liberals’ 153 mps have announced their intention not to run for re-election.
that’s nearly a quarter of the caucus who have already thrown in the towel on their parliamentary career — and the list includes many of the most influential names of the trudeau government.
fourteen of the 35 departing liberals are current or former cabinet ministers, including the reigning attorney general, arif virani.
in a feb. 10 statement announcing his retirement from politics, virani said he wanted to spend more time with family. “it is my turn now to give back to the people i love the most,” he wrote.
conspicuously, it’s mostly liberals that are opting to sit out the next election. among the house of commons’ 185 other seats, only 18 are held by mps who have similarly decided not to run for re-election.
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any parliament is going to yield a trickle of mps who decide to bow out before the next election, be it due to retirement, health problems or the oft-cited desire to “spend more time with family.”
in normal times the departures are pretty evenly shared among the various parties.
between the 2015 and 2019 elections, for instance, 44 mps decided not to run for re-election; 14 conservative, 19 liberal and 11 ndp.
go back to the period between the 1997 and 2000 federal elections – both of which are won by the liberals – and you’ll find an evenly distributed mix of 21 mps who decided to bow out; seven for the reform party, six for the liberals and eight bloc québécois.
but these ratios are known to shift dramatically when an incumbent is lurching towards an election they’re likely to lose.
the textbook example belongs to 1993, when the progressive conservative government of brian mulroney began scraping record lows of unpopularity before ultimately being defeated by the liberals under jean chrétien.
in the months preceding election day, 50 progressive conservative mps announced they wouldn’t be running for re-election – roughly a third of the caucus. this was against just six liberal and six ndpers who did the same.
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the departures occurred despite the fact that – as with the modern-day liberals – there were brief glimmers of hope that the 1993 election wouldn’t be a blowout. when mulroney was replaced as progressive conservative leader by kim campbell, there was a brief glimmer of time when campbell was polling as a favourite to win re-election.
but the 50 mps knew something the polls didn’t; just two progressive conservative mps would end up surviving the election.
the end of stephen harper’s government was also preceded by an exodus of sorts. throughout 2015 a steady trickle of cabinet ministers and mps announced they wouldn’t be making it to election day. of 56 mps who decided not to run for re-election in advance of the 2015 federal election, 34 (61 per cent) were conservatives.
this would end up including then-attorney general peter mackay and then-industry minister james moore, both of whose ridings would end up flipping to the ascendant liberals. mackay cited a desire to spend more time with family. moore cited a special needs son.
and this was all despite the fact that polls didn’t appear to show the conservatives on course for a guaranteed loss. most of the departures occurred with the party locked in a three-way tie with the liberals and the ndp,
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at the time, the opposition liberals and ndp pointed to the various departures as a sign of weakness – noting that harper was hemorrhaging mps at a rate not seen in decades. a reuters report noted all the resignations had “prompted political cartoons of rats leaving a sinking ship.”
“it’s a team that is weakened, and the sign of a government that’s a bit exhausted,” an ndp critic said in april 2015, after an easter weekend in which two harper cabinet ministers announced plans to retire from politics.
nevertheless, even harper’s final exodus wasn’t quite as bad as that currently being faced by the liberals.
the trudeau government has already lost a higher raw number of mps (35 vs. 34 for harper), and a higher share of the overall caucus (22.9 per cent vs. 21.3 per cent).
in other news
ruby dhalla was kicked out of the liberal leadership race after what party leadership described as “extremely serious” irregularities in her campaign filings. dhalla has not taken it well, calling the party’s allegations “false” and “fabricated.” “the tactics used to remove me from this race only confirm what we already knew—our message was resonating, we were winning, and the establishment felt threatened,” she added. a liberal mp from 2004 to 2011, dhalla was easily running the most right-wing campaign for liberal leader, possibly ever. her promises included deporting illegal migrants, leading an all-out crackdown on crime and inviting the united states to be annexed by canada.
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