Top Liberal says Trudeau should step down as party leader amid dismal polling

If the next Liberal Leader is able to bring the party back to the center of the political spectrum, Liberals have a chance of being reelected,’ Senator Percy Downe wrote in an op-ed earlier this week

Amid dismal polling numbers, a Liberal Party of Canada stalwart-turned-senator said the party needs to look for a new leader to replace Justin Trudeau.

The comments were made by Senator Percy Downe, who served as former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s chief of staff, from 2001 to 2003. Downe was appointed a senator by Chrétien in 2003.

On Wednesday, in an opinion piece for National Newswatch, Downe said that the “prudent course of action” is for another “Liberal Leader to rise from the impressive Liberal caucus and safeguard those policies [Trudeau] was actually able to accomplish.”

“If the next Liberal Leader is able to bring the party back to the center of the political spectrum, Liberals have a chance of being reelected,” he wrote.

Downe claimed that the party needs a new leader as it is the only one that has a “realistic chance of stopping a government led by Pierre Poilievre [the current Conservative leader].”

Recent polling shows that support for Poilievre’s Conservative Party is hitting positive levels not seen since the early days of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Indeed, a Federal @338Canada model has the “Outcome Odds” for a Conservative majority government at 95 percent.

Digging a little deeper, a recent Leger poll shows the Conservatives taking some 211 seats, a gain of 90 seats (well over the majority of 170 needed) with the Trudeau Liberals losing some 90 seats to win only 70 if an election were held today.

According to Downe, the opportunity for a Poilievre government was “created by a lack of fiscal responsibility in the Trudeau government, and the damage it caused our economy is now showing up in the opinion poll numbers.”

He also said that more centrist Liberal Party members became reluctant to support Trudeau after realizing they could not persuade him to spend less money.

“That naiveté was replaced with the realization that they were not a serious government when it came to the economy, that they simply didn’t care and would throw money at anything that crossed their mind. The resulting interest rate hikes, increasing cost of living, and huge debt didn’t seem to concern them,” he wrote.

Despite calling for Trudeau to be replaced, Downe expressed a lyrical sentiment toward the prime minister, saying “many party members are also grateful that Justin’s greatest accomplishment as leader has been his success in recruiting multitalented Canadians to serve in Parliament.”

Liberal heavyweight claims Trudeau could step down as early as February

Downe suggested, in a recent Hill Times interview, that he thinks Trudeau could step down as party leader as early as February of 2024. This was in the same month in 1984 that Trudeau’s father, Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, decided he was not going to seek re-election. Later that same year, the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney won in a landslide.

He claimed that there is a “possibility that under our first-past-the-post electoral system, Justin and the NDP could squeeze enough seats to form a minority government.”

The Liberal Party, which has a minority government, formed an informal coalition with the New Democratic Party (NDP) last year, with the latter agreeing to support and keep the former in power until the next election is mandated by law in 2025.  

However, Downe noted about this possible outcome, that the “questions for Justin Trudeau are: given the divisions in our country, is that the best result for Canada, and is it the best result for Justin personally?”

Earlier this week, Poilievre dared Trudeau to call a “carbon tax” election so Canadians can decide for themselves if they want a government for or against a tax that has caused home heating bills to double in some provinces.  

The controversy around the carbon tax “pause” came after Trudeau announced last week he was pausing the collection of the carbon tax on home heating oil in Atlantic Canadian provinces for three years. Trudeau’s announcement came amid dismal polling numbers showing his government will be defeated in a landslide by the Conservative Party come the next election.   

Related Topics:#AnthonyMurdoch #JustinTrudeau #LifeSiteNews #PierrePoilievre #SenatorPercyDowne

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Bank of Canada governor warns citizens to anticipate lower standard of living

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Carney speech highlights how easily newsrooms are played by politicians

Business

Bank of Canada governor warns citizens to anticipate lower standard of living

Published on November 1, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

“Unless something changes, our incomes will be lower than they otherwise would be.”

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem gave a grim assessment of the state of the economy, essentially telling Canadians that they should accept a “lower” standard of living.

In an update on Wednesday in which he also lowered Canada’s interest rate to 2.25 percent, Macklem gave the bleak news, which no doubt will hit Canadian families hard.

“What’s most concerning is, unless we change some other things, our standard of living as a country, as Canadians, is going to be lower than it otherwise would have been,” Macklem told reporters.

“Unless something changes, our incomes will be lower than they otherwise would be.”

Macklem said what Canada is going through “is not just a cyclical downturn.”

Asked what he meant by a “cyclical downturn,” Macklem blamed what he said were protectionist measures the United States has put in place such as tariffs, which have made everything more expensive.

“Part of it is structural,” he said, adding, “The U.S. has swerved towards protectionism.”

“It is harder to do business with the United States. That has destroyed some of the capacity in this country. It’s also adding costs.”

Macklem stopped short of saying out loud that a recession is all but inevitable but did say growth is “pretty close to zero” at the moment.

Canadian taxpayers are already dealing with high inflation and high taxes, in part due to the Liberal government overspending and excessive money printing, and even admitting that giving money to Ukraine comes at the “taxpayers’” expense.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Carney boldly proclaimed earlier this week that his Liberal government’s upcoming 2025 budget will include millions more in taxpayer money for “SLGBTQI+ communities” and “gender” equality and “pride” safety.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) recently blasted the Carney government for spending $13 million on promotional merchandise such as “climate change card games,” “laser pens and flying saucers,” and “Bamboo toothbrushes” since 2022.

Canadians pay some of the highest income and other taxes in the world. As reported by LifeSiteNews, Canadian families spend, on average, 42 percent of their income on taxes, more than food and shelter costs. Inflation in Canada is at a high not seen in decades.

Media

Carney speech highlights how easily newsrooms are played by politicians

Published on October 31, 2025

Todayville

The Rewrite

Peter Menzies

Plus! Global’s oops on Trump in the crosshairs and assuming what Stephen Harper thinks may not be the best idea!

It has never been easier, thanks to the internet, for journalists to check if they are being played for fools. But due either to sloth, neglect, habit or servility – pick one – way too many lack the motivation to use a search engine.

Instead, they frequently accept the role of featherheads manipulated by politicians staging one of the oldest scams in the Machiavellian playbook, the recycled “news” announcement. I say “featherheads” (patsies was another option) because, for instance, Prime Minister Mark Carney can book news network time for a full half hour speech that is nothing more than a rehash of everything he’s been saying for the past 10 months and still lead newscasts and make the front pages.

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Here, I must pause to credit the Toronto Star. It, like other news organizations, received an embargoed copy of Wednesday’s speech in advance. It read it, saw that it contained no news and did not put a report on its front page. Others such as National Post and the Globe and Mail tried desperately to find a fresh angle within the speech but put it on their front pages anyway. CBC threw everything it had into it and CTV also led with it and tried its best to make it sound like news had happened.

Now, I am a reasonable and fair-minded person, so I would not be reacting were it just this incident that captured my attention. The PM is speaking, everyone gets excited, you review and lock in your story lineup and, ya, I get it. Been there, done that. But this was part of a troubling pattern that has emerged.

For instance, the government’s “plan” to hire 1,000 more Canadian Border Services guards was first announced in the Liberal election platform last spring. It was then, according to Blacklock’s Reporter, re-announced “April 10, April 28, June 3 and August 12.”

That Blacklock’s report was published Oct. 14 and focused on Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree’s insistence he was “not responsible” for the promised hiring that hadn’t happened yet. Two days later, Carney announced that the previously announced and re-announced plan would be announced again in the Nov. 4 budget. And the day after that – Oct. 17 – Anandasangaree announced his ministry would be doing what he said a few days previously wasn’t his responsibility and hiring 1,000 new border guards – over the next five years. A similar pattern of announcement and reannouncements took place regarding the government’s plan to hire 1,000 more RCMP officers, also not immediately but eventually. Then, last week, Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne announced a financial crimes agency would be up and running by next June. This, too, was reported as a new initiative even though the government first committed to that agency in 2021.

While not all news organizations rise to the bait, this widely carried Canadian Press story is an example of how easily the public can be misinformed by reporting that lacks proper context. Re-announcements are presented as “news” despite there being no news other than “politicians repeat what they said before to keep their names in the news.” Media that go along with this pattern of manipulation allow themselves to be accused of defining news as anything the government wishes to present as news, something about which – now that media are subsidized by politicians – they should be more cautious.

The nation needs journalists to tell the whole story or, as Robert Maynard, founder of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, put it:

“The first thing about journalism is about accuracy and fairness, but that’s not enough. It has to be about context, it has to be about depth.”

Speaking of headlines, Global News deserves a long stare and shake of the head for the one it slapped on its report of the “No Kings” protests held last weekend.

Seemingly oblivious to the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk and two attempts on the life of US President Donald Trump, Global initially went with the above illustrated “Trump in the crosshairs” headline before changing it to “No Kings Day rallies draw hundreds of thousands of protesters.” The updated version made no reference to the initial version.

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There was quite a stir within the punditry when Dimitri Soudas, defrocked Conservative comms guy and former pal of notorious floor-crosser Eve Adams, wrote an op-ed for the Toronto Star criticizing party leader Pierre Poilievre. Rather than go with the disgruntled former employee angle, the Globe and Mail’s Larry Martin led the pack in leaping to a conclusion:

“Soudas wouldn’t have written this attack on Poilievre without Stephan (sic) Harper’s okay,” he posted. “It means the knives are out to get PP and they are big knives that could kill his leadership.”

Martin, who has had a very distinguished career, hadn’t confirmed what he assumed Harper was thinking and was quickly schooled by Anna Tomala, the former PM’s spokeswoman.

“Mr. Soudas does not speak on behalf of Mr. Harper,” she stated curtly.

Martin did not delete his original post but while to his credit he did post an update, it’s unclear his blushes were spared.

CTV, meanwhile, declined to include Tomala’s Harper statement in its report on Soudas’s op-ed.

Retired CTV reporter Alan Fryer, meanwhile, gave his past employer a blast on X after it delivered this headline: “Carney is going ‘where the puck is going to be’ in first trip to Asia as PM.”

Fryer’s world-weary response?

“My Lord, the headline. A leader couldn’t hope for a more compliant media.”

Finally, two commentators for news organizations were subjected to harm and intimidation last week and we learned that a third had been threatened in August. Terry Newman of National Post posted that she would be contacting police, Ezra Levant of Rebel News was laid out at a protest in Dublin and it was discovered that Brian Passifume of the Toronto Sun faced a death threat in August. I checked to see if the Canadian Association of Journalists (which has abandoned X) had something to say on their behalf. The CAJ’s most recent web post regarding abuse of journalists was on Sept. 25 in defence of Isaac Peltz of theindependent.ca and William Wilson, who writes for therover.ca.

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(Peter Menzies is a commentator and consultant on media, Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow, a past publisher of the Calgary Herald, a former vice chair of the CRTC and a National Newspaper Award winner.)