Inside the revolt against Trudeau

Journalist overheard minister talking to Liberals, taking stock of party's state of mind

- JUSTIN LING

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault spent Thursday working the phones to gauge the mood of federal Liberals across Canada after the party's shock loss in a Toronto byelection.

Steven Guilbeault has been taking the temperature of the Liberal party caucus as calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation mount.

The environment minister was in Toronto this week to meet with Members of Parliament who were awestruck by Monday’s upset defeat in the Toronto—St Paul’s byelection. He spent Thursday working the phones with Liberals across the country trying to take stock of how bad things really are.

I know this because Guilbault did some of this work in public, in the Via Rail business lounge, as he sat next to Canada’s least-recognizable columnist: Me.

“If we’re not trying to address it, it will fester,” Guilbeault mused into his wireless headphones, loudly enough for me to hear without moving a muscle. “So this conversation will need to happen whether we want (it) to or not.”

The conversation, as he phrased it on a subsequent call in French, is the same one every political pundit in Canada is having this week: Should Justin Trudeau stay or should he go?

Over the course of three phone calls, it became clear Guilbeault was feeling around for who might be most likely to call for Trudeau’s departure. “I’ve been asked by PMO (the Prime Minister’s Office) to make some calls and talk to people and report back,” he said on one of those calls.

To date, a ragtag crew of mostly retired politicians — ex-MPs Wayne Easter and John Manley, former B.C. Liberal leader Christy Clark, as well as the environment minister’s predecessor, Catherine McKenna — have all urged Trudeau to go. On Friday, the Star’s Althia Raj reported that New Brunswick MP Wayne Long was in open revolt, passing a letter around caucus calling for Trudeau to resign.