Time running out for PM to choose a path

NANAIMO, B .C . These should be consequential meetings. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals face the greatest challenge they have ever faced — the possibility of a fourth-place finish after the next election. Aside from the leadership question hanging over all Grit MPs’ heads — should the prime minister stay or should he go — there are other challenges to address.

- ALTHIA RAJ

What is the Liberals’ offer? Beyond asking the electorate to vote for Trudeau because Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are scary — a playbook used in 2019 and 2021 — what are the Liberals running on, beyond more of the same? What is their answer to the palpable appetite for change? How do they plan to turn the ship around? What will form the basis of the next election platform? Where is the campaign team and what’s the state of the machine, so obviously present in 2015, that can avoid close calls like last June’s devastating byelection loss in Toronto—St. Paul’s?

In short, what is the plan?

Perhaps, it’s a bad sign that Liberal MPs expect a third of their colleagues won’t show up at their summer caucus, three days of meetings, beginning Monday in Nanaimo, B.C. If Grit MPs are checked out, how can you expect the electorate to get excited?

The Liberals’ stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict has mobilized swaths of voters against the Grits and the concern among some GTHA MPs is that it will be a significant marker of distinction between the centre-left parties come election time

For some, the expectation is the fireworks will come next week. Two high-stakes byelections, on Sept. 16, will test both the Liberals’ and the NDP’s strength, and may shed light on which party and leader will run off with the marker of being the federal progressive option for voters at the next campaign.