Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

“Things could change, of course.” Ah, the escape hatch for the prediction-hedging columnist.

Those words were written in a July piece in which your scribe predicted a rough ride ahead for the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

We boldly continued, “Given the beating the Liberals have endured over the past several months (yaddah yaddah) … not to mention the usual fatigue with a government now in power for nearly eight years, one would think the Grits would be tanking hopelessly.”

So, yes, one would think that. But things did change this summer. Perhaps the rising price of hamburger for the barbecue, or the raging forest fires, or raging about a Nazi being applauded in Parliament, or just general raging against anything Liberal, the Grits under Justin Trudeau are indeed “tanking” in the polls. The question, of course, is how “hopelessly.”

The degree of hopelessness has inevitably ignited rampant speculation in the media and at the dinner table about the future of the current prime minister, whose level of public loathing has reached new heights (depths?).

The latest surge of pontification amongst the punditry on the subject, what might be called the “walk in the snow” debate, was sparked by a recent op-ed from Senator Percy Downe, who used to be chief of staff to Jean Chrétien, a politician who knew a thing or two about winning.

Downe writes about future Liberal prospects: “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 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?

“The prudent course of action is for another Liberal leader to rise from the impressive Liberal caucus and … if the next Liberal leader is able to bring the party back to the centre of the political spectrum, Liberals have a chance of being re-elected.”

Downe, incidentally, doesn’t offer a specific diagnosis of the Liberals’ summer swoon in the polls, save “a lack of fiscal responsibility in the Trudeau government, and the damage it caused our economy is now showing up.”

So, in Downe’s opinion, Trudeau needs to take that famous walk in the snow like his father did in February 1984 and call it quits.

Downe’s plea came at just about the same time another voice entered the fray in the person of Mark Carney, former head of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England – and, even more politically sexy, a bilingual Albertan.

Carney, a card-carrying Liberal, gave an interview to the Globe & Mail in early November where he did not dismiss outright the notion of being interested in the Liberal leadership. As Max Fawcett of the National Observer put it, “in the dialect of aspiring political leaders, that’s as close an answer to ‘hell yes’ as you’re going to get.”

The Liberals still have the gift of time, assuming NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh does not put his precious balance-of-power gig at risk and pull the plug on his party’s deal with the Liberals in the coming months.

Trudeau and his brain trust may make the calculation that they will eventually bottom out in the polls and have nowhere to go but up.

With inflation easing, interest rates dropping and a mercifully brief recession to be endured, some of the anger and bitterness may drain off and put the Liberals back in contention come 2025. Canadians may also become fatigued with the discourse of the Conservative leader.

If, however, defeat does seem inevitable no matter what the Liberals do – the assumption being Trudeau himself is the party’s biggest liability – then perhaps Liberals would ask, “Why would we burn a new leader on a lost cause, and why not let Justin have his round in the ring with his Conservative tormenter in a final, epic campaign?”

There is also the Joe Clark scenario in which the Conservatives win a minority, but voters quickly regret what they did and return the Liberals to power quicker than you can say “Ax the Tax.”

Unlike in 1979, when the Liberals begged a defeated Pierre Trudeau to renounce his resignation and return to lead them into the February 1980 election, one would think the Liberals would allow Justin to stay retired.

Of course, things could change.