The Liberals are in freefall. With this week’s Bloc Québécois victory in Montreal’s LaSalle—Émard—Verdun byelection, on top of the five-alarm byelection defeat in Toronto—St. Paul’s earlier this summer, Canada’s “natural governing party” returns to Parliament down two longtime urban strongholds.
The evidence, both from polls and reports of private inner-party conversations, is overwhelming that the problem is the prime minister himself. Yet, he refuses to leave and Liberal MPs have few mechanisms—particularly since they rejected the Reform Act at the beginning of this parliamentary session—to get rid of him.
What would be best for the Liberal caucus, and future of the party, is in direct opposition to the self-interest of their leader and his closest advisors. Yet, even if there was the potential for forced change, the still-resounding public silence of MPs and party heavyweights is cause for skepticism that common sense will trump a carefully fostered culture of cowardice and kowtowing.
Canadian politics has always revolved around inner power circles, but those circles are now microscopic dots. These days, political parties centralize not just authority but even the right to show signs of free thought in less than a handful of people––which may or may not meaningfully include a party’s on-paper leader.
Either way, a personality cult is then “cultivated” around the leader to inspire unquestioning devotion from supporters that can be wielded against so-called traitors.
The result is less a democratic system and more a series of superficial stage productions where everyone is expected to dutifully clap when the applause sign lights up, and sit on their hands as soon as it goes off.
There are no exceptions to the rule.
