TORONTO (AP) — Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that he will lead his Liberal Party into the next election, dismissing a request by some party members to not run for a fourth term.
Trudeau met with his Liberal members of Parliament for three hours Wednesday, where he learned that more than 20 lawmakers from his party signed a letter asking him to step down before the next election.
He said there were “robust conversations” ongoing about the best way forward, but “that will happen with me as leader going into the next election.”
No Canadian prime minister in more than a century has won four straight terms.
Trudeau’s Cabinet ministers have said he has the support of the vast majority of the 153 Liberal Party members of the House of Commons.
Sean Casey, one of the Liberal lawmakers who signed the letter asking Trudeau to step down, said he was disappointed Trudeau didn’t take the time to reflect but said he now considers the matter done and he’s moving on. Casey said Trudeau listened but he wasn’t swayed.
“This was a decision he had every right to make and he made it,” Casey told reporters. “I did my job in voicing what I was hearing from constituents and now I have to direct my energy to winning my seat and not internal party matters. As far as I’m concerned it is closed.”
Casey said he wouldn’t call it delusional but said Trudeau “is seeing something I don’t see, that my constituents don’t see.”
The Liberals trail the Conservatives by 38% to 25% in the latest Nanos poll. The poll of 1,037 respondents has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
The Liberals recently suffered upsets in special elections for seats representing two districts in Toronto and Montreal that the party has held for years, raising doubts about Trudeau’s leadership.
The federal election could come anytime between this fall and next October. The Liberals must rely on the support of at least one major party in Parliament, as they don’t hold an outright majority themselves.
The leader of the opposition Bloc Québécois has said his party will work with the Conservatives and the New Democratic Party, of NDP, to bring down the Liberals and force an election if the government doesn’t boost pensions.
Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, said pressure is building on Trudeau but that some of his unhappy lawmakers don’t have much power to force him out.
“Trudeau holds all the cards. It is up to him if he wants to stay. The Liberal Party revised its rules in 2016 so that the party leader is immune to any challenge to his leadership so long as he is prime minister,” said Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto.
Trudeau channeled the star power of his father in 2015 when he reasserted the country’s liberal identity after almost 10 years of Conservative Party rule. But the son of late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau is now in trouble. Canadians have been frustrated by the rising cost of living and other issues like immigration increases following the country’s emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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