Michael Den Tandt: Trudeau can't pull a Biden. The cycle won't allow it

America’s Democrats, in 2024, are just half-way through their current presidential cycle. Trudeau has a decade weighing him down.

By: Michael Den Tandt

It’s a tough time to be a backbench Liberal MP in Canada, yes? The tone, emerging in anonymous leaks to reporters, is grumpy, surly, unhappy. This is unsurprising. We’re in year ten of a ten-year political cycle that feels stretched and road-beaten, by any standard.

Plus, to our south, there’s this shining model now of the transformative power of change. One day President Joe Biden is clinging by his fingernails to his party’s nomination, with the convicted felon Donald Trump seemingly headed for a big win in November. The next, Biden’s out, new hope Kamala Harris is raising tens of millions in campaign donations, and reporters are lasering in on Trump’s highly quotable running mate, J.D. Vance.

All in a week. So, couldn’t something similar happen in Ottawa? Couldn’t Prime Minister Justin Trudeau take a step back, hit the beach or the lecture circuit, make way for fresh blood, and at least give the Liberals a shot at survival in 2025? What’s he waiting for?

Anything is possible. But this scenario is unlikely. That’s because Justin Trudeau isn’t Joe Biden; Chrystia Freeland isn’t Kamala Harris, and Canada isn’t the United States.

Most obviously, the cycle: The cycle is everything. Individuals are all but powerless in its clutches. As it nears a decade it adds lead weights, like those a deep-sea diver might wear, to the feet of Canadian incumbents. Even the most promising of change agents — former prime minister and justice minister Kim Campbell is Exhibit A — will be brought low by its power.

The argument can be made made that the Progressive Conservative party’s obliteration in 1993 (reduced from majority status to two seats) was not just due to late-cycle fatigue, that Campbell herself had run a wobbly campaign. Some will note the deep weariness with the constitutional wrangling that dominated Canadian discourse during the Brian Mulroney years, or the hangover of Mulroney’s, at the time, keen personal unpopularity. Fair points.

But underlying those events was still the implacable cycle — as in 2006, when prime minister Paul Martin, having seen that Liberal government reduced to a minority in 2004 (despite his personal popularity at the time), lost power to a rising Stephen Harper. In the throes of the federal sponsorship scandal (I will spare you the details, but you can find them here if you’re interested in the arcana), Martin was described by gifted wordsmith Scott Reid, then his communications director, as “the wire brush” who would scrape away the stain of sponsorship. It was a bold attempt to rhetorically seize the change wave. But the wave was strong and Martin lost.

In Ontario, in 2002, a polarizing Conservative premier, Mike Harris, tried to hand off to his finance minister, Ernie Eves; but, the cycle. Fresh-faced Liberal Dalton McGuinty easily defeated Eves in 2003 and served as premier until — wait for it — 2013, when the cycle claimed him, in his turn.

Though the American system of federal governance is vastly different from Canada’s Westminster-based model, the cycle applies there too. Think of Republican Ronald Reagan, president from 1980 until 1988; Bill Clinton, 1992 to 2000; George W. Bush, 2000 to 2008; and Barack Obama, 2008 until 2016.

The senior Bush, George H.W., who served for just one term, from 1988 to 1992, was arguably bucking the U.S. cycle, coming as his term did on the heels of eight years of the Reagan administration, in which Bush was vice-president. And Trump is, of course, the other modern exception. His defeat by Biden in 2020 after a single term can be attributed to the chaos that ruled during his tenure, and his manifest personal unfitness for the job.

The crux is just this: America’s Democrats, in 2024, are just half-way through their current presidential cycle. Biden’s exit from the ticket, following his disastrous debate showing in late June, is historically extraordinary. And vice-president Kamala Harris, until a week ago, has been the administration’s understudy, never the lead. Also, to state the obvious, she faces an opponent who has tried to overturn American democracy once and has said he will do so again. As a 59-year-old woman of Black and South Asian descent, with an impressive professional record before joining government, Harris represents all kinds of change, with contrasts to both Biden and Trump.

Now, Canada. Trudeau, for his part, is neither elderly nor in poor health. As he showed again recently when accosted by a reporter on the beach, he’s still quick enough on his feet. Freeland, meanwhile, has been no understudy: She has rather been front and centre in managing every significant domestic or international challenge the Liberals have faced since they won power in 2015 — beginning with Trump 1.0 in 2017. Freeland’s 2012 book, Plutocrats, provided the Trudeau Liberals’ foundational narrative about the “hollowing out” of the middle class. For that reason, the deputy prime minister can’t now embody change, at least not the kind of wholesale contrast with the status quo that Harris represents in Washington, D.C. Nor would any other member of the Trudeau cabinet. Each would require a full leadership race, with cross-country tours and multiple debates, in which to establish contrasts. They don’t have time to do that, get beyond it, and stabilize a new leader with the bona fides to buck the cycle.

This leads to the inevitable conversation about Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England. But this again, in the present context, feels more like a dream of a Hail Mary pass, than a real prospect. Skilled, charismatic and professionally pedigreed though he may be, Carney has no background in retail politics, let alone a seat in the House of Commons. The idea that he could somehow vault to prominence in time to confound the cycle and make a difference in the 2025 election, not having won a nomination or attended a single rubber-chicken fundraiser in a church basement (as far as I am aware), is fanciful.

All of which draws one to this conclusion: Trudeau and his team, understanding they’re in the grip of a cyclical undertow, also understanding that the intense focus on the personality of the leader is more about campaigns than governing, may have decided to ride this out. Should the Liberals lose power in year 10 of a 10-year cycle, they lose — few at this stage, backbenchers’ grumbling aside, expect them to win. But should an opportunity present itself, Trudeau likely figures he’s as well-positioned as any other Liberal to capitalize on it. And he may not be wrong.

Low expectations, Trudeau has shown time and time again since the boxing match that launched his ascent in 2012, do not make him uncomfortable.

Michael Den Tandt writes about international affairs, politics, strategy and culture. He is a former advisor to the prime minister and deputy prime minster of Canada. You can (and, The Line editors believe, should!) read more from Michael at his own Substack, where this originally appeared.

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