A strangely torpid summer for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals

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In 2020, while Justin Trudeau was on vacation, a new message was trickled out by his entourage. The PM wanted a new post-pandemic ambition. It was whispered that his then-finance minister, Bill Morneau, might have to go. Soon, that ruthless personnel change was made. Parliament was prorogued for a throne speech, to symbolize a reset.

That Justin Trudeau was a prime minister in a hurry. Too much so, as it turned out, because the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t over, and the big plans were delayed. Still, his new Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland, delivered a big-spending “build-back-better” budget the following spring that included national child care and large sums for green-tech incentives.

This summer, Mr. Trudeau made ruthless cabinet changes again. Seven ministers were axed. New faces were brought in.

But if he was reaching for the reset button, he didn’t find it. Instead, Liberal Ottawa is having a strangely placid summer.

At this stage, proroguing Parliament to issue a throne speech wouldn’t have been enough to symbolize a fresh start for an eight-year-old government. Mr. Trudeau’s July 26 cabinet shuffle didn’t do it, either. He changed a lot of ministers but didn’t transform the recognized face of Liberal government. Ms. Freeland is still at Finance. The few ministers that most Canadians would recognize are still there, too.

This time, there wasn’t much talk about revamping the mission.

Mr. Trudeau walked out of Rideau Hall after his shuffle to say this was the team to continue the “hard work” at a “consequential moment,” without signalling any particular notions for confronting it. He talked about what the government has done, but not so much about its plans. He didn’t outline a new ambition, except to say the new team would build one.

Weeks later, many of those new or moved ministers still don’t have staff in their ministerial offices, which is usually a prerequisite for getting the new cabinet crew up to speed, let alone setting new priorities.

It’s a strangely languid mood at a time when the governing Liberals’ political prospects seem in trouble. They are now consistently behind Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives in opinion polls, and though that’s not definitive in a summer outside an election year, the trend line has been bad news for Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals.

Some MPs have found that Mr. Trudeau’s advisers don’t betray a sense of urgency and argue that there’s plenty of time because there’s another two years in the mandate. But that relies on the parliamentary alliance with the NDP staying in place – and eight-year-old governments tend to grow less popular over time.

Perhaps the quiet summer is just a breather. Mr. Trudeau’s cabinet will hold a retreat next week in Prince Edward Island. Perhaps the Liberal government will map out new priorities before Parliament resumes in September. Maybe. There hasn’t been a lot of ambitious talk about the fall yet.

But in 2020, when Mr. Trudeau wanted an ambitious reset, he came back from vacation to change his team and set new plans in motion. This year, he shuffled his cabinet and then left for vacation, leaving a lull.

That has encouraged weeks of Liberals engaging in post-facto cabinet shuffle speculation about the signal behind Mr. Trudeau’s summer moves.

Several news stories cited unnamed MPs complaining about being passed over for lesser lights, with the promotion of rookie Mississauga-Streetsville MP Rechie Valdez particularly annoying some longer-serving Liberals who are still on the backbench.

The clear-out of seven ministers was a bigger cull than most expected, and the demotion of Oakville MP Anita Anand from defence minister to Treasury Board President left some Liberals wondering if Mr. Trudeau’s entourage is trying to influence a future Liberal leadership race.

That’s the sort of gossip that goes around the political world in the summer, especially a quiet summer. The kind when Ottawa isn’t either scrambling to cope with events or being driven forward on a new mission. It’s surprising that this is the mood of summer 2023, when Mr. Trudeau doesn’t seem to be a PM in a hurry.