Dear Katie Telford: It’s time to go
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been told by Liberal MPs that some of his key players need to go. Beyond Trudeau himself, PMO Chief of Staff Katie Telford is the only truly ‘key player.’
It’s been a couple of weeks since the Liberal Party of Canada had its corrective interview with the engaged voters of Toronto-St. Paul’s, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems to have withstood the modest attempt to push him out of the top job. I didn’t think he’d quit, either, but the dark cloud remains: the 15-20 point differential between his national support number and that of the Conservative Party of Canada. The Grits have no apparent recovery plan, beyond hoping that Canadians will suddenly wake-up one morning and start to show a little (lot) more gratitude for all of the wonderful things the government has been doing following last summer’s emergency cabinet makeover. I thought I’d fill in that strategy vacuum, recognizing that Mr. Trudeau will never go for it (at least I don’t think he will).
I’ve posted the first half of this week’s Toronto Star column below; if you want to see how it ends, readers of my Substack can now subscribe via a special discount code: www.thestar.com/informed.
Dear Katie Telford,
It’ll feel odd to take advice from a lifelong Tory but hear me out.
Unlike anyone else in your orbit, I’ve been in your shoes. In the early 1990s, my desk in the Prime Minister’s Office also happened to be beside a PM who had equally bleak re-election prospects.
We were polling around 17 per cent, and Hugh Segal, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s then chief of staff, joked later that “more Canadians thought that Elvis was still alive than intended to vote for us in the next election.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s current 24 per cent support level looks rosy by comparison. So, take heart. Things could be worse.
Given the Liberal party’s weak standing prior to Trudeau’s selection as leader in 2013, you’re likely shocked at the lack of respect being shown by those who are trying to engineer his immediate exit. Have they forgotten Trudeau’s three consecutive election victories? This backbiting is quite different than the final 12 months of the Mulroney era, where the former PM’s relationship with his caucus minimized internal criticism.
That said, you and the Boss have handled this tumult with aplomb.
Avoiding an “emergency caucus meeting” was the right call. It would have been insane to give the malcontents a forum to gripe; nothing good comes from a fresh batch of news stories about unnamed Liberal MPs looking for blood. Recognizing that his personal outreach should have started sooner, the rumoured flurry of individual calls between the PM and his MPs is a wise — if tedious — tactic.
Although Trudeau has always followed Machiavelli’s advice to try to be both “loved and feared,” the infamous 15th century philosopher also warned that “in general, men are ungrateful, inconstant, cowardly and greedy.” A reminder about being careful who you trust these days.
As for Trudeau’s cabinet, I suspect they’re following the advice that the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan recently gave to Joe Biden’s senior elected colleagues: “You don’t want to be the one who kills the king, you want to be the one who warmly mourns the king and takes his mantle after someone else kills him.”
That doesn’t mean the knives aren’t out for you, however.
Hit the link to read the rest of the piece.
MRM
(this post, like all blogs, is an Opinion Piece)