Lawmakers From Trudeau's Own Party Want Him to Quit

Some lawmakers in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's own Liberal Party asked the leader not to run for a fourth term Wednesday, handing him one of the biggest tests of his political career. A smiling Trudeau said Liberals are "strong and united" after meeting with Liberal members of Parliament for three hours. Three Liberals, however, said they were among a total of more than 20 lawmakers from the party to have signed a letter asking Trudeau to step down before the next election, the AP reports. There are 153 Liberals in Canada's House of Commons.

• "He has to start listening, listening to the people," said Ken McDonald, a Liberal Member of Parliament from Newfoundland who said he signed the letter, which has not been made public. McDonald, who is not running again, said some of his colleagues who plan on running are nervous because of poor polling numbers.
• Sources tell the CBC that Patrick Weiler, an MP from British Columbia, read out a separate document calling for Trudeau to resign, saying the Liberals might get the same boost the Democratic Party did after President Biden dropped his re-election bid.

• Trudeau, who previously has said he plans to run again, didn't take questions from reporters after the meeting. No Canadian prime minister has won four straight terms since John A. MacDonald, who died a few months after victory in the 1891 election.
• Trudeau's Liberals recently suffered upsets in special elections in two districts in Toronto and Montreal that the party has held for years, raising doubts about Trudeau's leadership. The federal election could come any time between this fall and October 2025. The Liberals must rely on the support of at least one major party in Parliament as they don't have the majority of seats.
• The Liberals trail the opposition Conservatives 38% to 25% in the latest Nanos poll. The opposition leader of the Bloc Québécois has said his party will work with the Conservatives and the New Democratic Party, or NDP, to bring the Liberals down and force an election if the government doesn't boost pensions for seniors.
• "The situation of the Liberals in the opinion polls is likely to remain catastrophic. Unless something dramatic and unforeseen occurs, the electoral prospects of the Liberals with Justin Trudeau at the helm look bleak," says Daniel Béland, a politics professor at McGill University in Montreal.

(More Justin Trudeau stories.)