Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s cabinet resignation on Monday is prompting some Liberal MPs to step up their efforts to remove Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from the top job.
Prime Minister Trudeau confronted disgruntled MPs at a hastily convened caucus meeting on Monday night. One MP who was present told CBC News that most of the 15 MPs who spoke at the meeting said Trudeau must resign after he misjudged his once-vital relationship with Freeland. spoke.
A number of other MPs are now publicly calling on the Prime Minister to resign and allow someone else to lead the Liberal Party at the next election.
Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said on Tuesday: “My understanding is that the Prime Minister will reflect both on the decisions made by Minister Freeland, but also on what he hears from members of his own caucus.”
“I think we all need to give him some time to think and we respect the fact that he’s going to take some time to think.”
The House of Commons goes on vacation starting Tuesday and is not scheduled to return until the end of January, giving Trudeau time to consider his options.
Here are some ways Prime Minister Trudeau may decide in the coming weeks.
he decided to resign
If Trudeau decides he is ready to step down, the Liberals will need to choose a new leader and then a prime minister. New prime ministers have been elected several times in the past, including Pierre Trudeau in 1968, John Turner in 1984, Kim Campbell in 1993, and Paul Martin in 2003.
Parliament could convene as normal while the Liberal Party conducts a new leadership election. However, the Liberal Party does not have a majority of seats in the House of Commons and risks being overthrown in a vote of no confidence before a new leader is chosen.
As a result, it may be safer for Trudeau to ask the governor general to prorogue parliament until a new prime minister is ready to govern.
The adjournment of Congress acts as a kind of pause button for Congress. As long as Congress is in session, neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate will meet or conduct business. Legislative blanks will be wiped out, all bills that have not received royal assent will be scrapped, and a new session will begin when Parliament returns.
he decided to stay here
Even if Trudeau decides to remain prime minister, he will have to manage a disgruntled Liberal caucus and a House of Commons that could be poised to overthrow the government.
He may be able to appease some lawmakers by offering him a cabinet position. Prime Minister Trudeau is expected to reshuffle his cabinet in the coming weeks, replacing several ministers who have decided not to seek re-election. The long-rumored personnel changes that led to Freeland’s resignation will likely have to happen even if Trudeau decides to remain in government.
With the House of Commons now out of session, an immediate election can only be triggered by Prime Minister Trudeau himself asking the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament. By law, federal election campaigns must run for at least 37 days, so even if the election were to begin today, the results would not be determined until after President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
The House of Commons is scheduled to reconvene on January 27, and the opposition will have its first opportunity to topple the government after that. But the Conservative Party and the Bloc Quebecois Party, which are calling for an election following Freeland’s resignation, do not have enough votes alone to topple the government.
To bring down the government, the NDP Must either vote as a bloc with the Conservatives or abstain from a vote of confidence..
Since Mr. Freeland resigned from the cabinet, the New Democratic Party has called on Mr. Trudeau to resign. However, the NDP appears to be more willing than other opposition parties to give the prime minister more time to think about the future.
NDP House of Commons Leader Peter Julian told CBC News Network. power and politics On Monday, the NDP announced it would vote against the Liberals in a no-confidence motion if Trudeau does not resign by February or March.
“If the fiasco that we are seeing here continues and the prime minister does not resign… yes, [we would vote no confidence]” he told host David Cochrane.