Trudeau is under siege. His MPs are openly feuding. This is only the start of troubles for the Liberal party

 For those who enjoy indulging in a little Ottawa “Kremlinology,” there’s been a lot of interesting buzz, increasingly in the open, about rifts in the Liberal government. The most prominent of those differences includes two cabinet ministers, who have perhaps the highest profiles: Mélanie Joly and, just this week, Chrystia Freeland.

Other disagreements are less prominent, but no less instructive. Last week, the CBC reported that Chandra Arya, an Ontario-based Liberal MP, was accusing one of his fellow Liberal MPs, B.C.-based Sukh Dhaliwal, of threatening him and aggressively accosting him outside the House of Commons.

Their dispute is outside the scope of this column. What struck me as both interesting and germane is that, when your MPs are openly accusing each other of bad deeds in the media, that is a pretty big signal that the Liberal party, as a government and political institution, isn’t doing so great.

Which brings us back to Freeland. Earlier this week, the Globe and Mail reported on tension between Freeland, the deputy prime minister and finance minister, and the PMO, citing Freeland’s reluctance to engage in unwise spending — the GST holiday, the proposed rebate cheques — that is plainly political. The Globe cited sources who noted that the dispute seems similar to the one that eventually led Freeland’s predecessor, Bill Morneau, to quit. It also noted that these kinds of tensions between a finance minister and a prime minister are nothing new or unusual.

True. Uncontroversial, even. But now let’s consider that third story: Joly, foreign affairs minister, has been the subject of three recent articles. One of them was Justin Ling, here in the Star, where he called for her to be fired and replaced, based in large part on her underwhelming performance at the recent Halifax International Security Forum. Another was by yours truly; I agreed with Ling. The third was a profile piece in The New York Times, which included speculation that Joly might one day replace Justin Trudeau.

Though it ran recently, the NYT interview took place in July and the profile was written in the summer, according to people familiar with the process. It’s an unfortunate coincidence for Joly, given the negative reaction to her time in Halifax. But some of the reaction to it was interesting. I was surprised by the number of Liberals who either privately or publicly began mulling over the merit of a Joly leadership run.

Now, I absolutely see the argument for Joly for Liberal leader. It’s just that, ahem, there already is a Liberal leader. And he’s been pretty clear he’s not going anywhere.

These three stories are, of course, unrelated. Almost unrelated, anyway. The common thread that runs through them is that the Liberals — again, as a government and also as a political party — are seemingly having a wee bit of internal discord. This isn’t a shock, since we already knew about the internal rumblings in the caucus about Trudeau’s continued leadership.

But none of what ails the Liberals is going to get better. In fact, most of it is going to get worse. Is there some good economic news? Sure. The rate-cut announcement this week will be happily received by the government. But it’s only going to increase the tension between the PMO and Freeland, assuming the latter chooses to dig in and fight. Given that polling shows no “Trump Bump” and an overall negative reaction to the government tax reprieve and rebates — what I’ve been calling “the vibe bribe” — the pressure on Trudeau to leave is going to remain, while speculation about Joly’s plans will keep swirling.

And as for the two squabbling backbench MPs, look around at the state of the world today. Can you think of anything else going around the globe that might possibly cause a rift in a caucus that can taste an oncoming freight train of electoral doom?

This government is already showing real signs of struggling to hold up under pressure. None of these pressures are going away, and starting in about five weeks, the pressure is actually going to increase, as president-elect Donald Trump makes his triumphant return to the Oval Office. Liberals today may feel like they’ve had a rotten few months. I can only invert a phrase once used by the prime minister and assure them that worse is always possible.

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