Don't write off Trudeau's re-election chances just yet, expert says

A lot can change in a few years, especially when you’re the leader of a country. Just ask Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who appears to be facing the biggest controversy of his political career.

Trudeau is facing allegations of political interference that are so explosive, they’re making international headlines. The Guardian calls it the “scandal that could bring down” Trudeau, while Time magazine says it’s his most explosive crisis yet.

“There are scandals, small ‘s,’ and there are scandals, capital ‘S,'” Renan Levine, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto, told Yahoo Canada. “The scandal, of course, has gotten worse.”

The SNC-Lavalin affair has dogged the Trudeau Liberals since an explosive newspaper report was published on Feb. 7. The Globe and Mail reported Jody Wilson-Raybould faced pressure from the Prime Minister’s Office to intervene in the criminal case against Quebec engineering giant SNC-Lavalin while she was the federal justice minister and attorney general.

Trudeau denied the allegations, but a lot has happened since then. Wilson-Raybould resigned from cabinet and Trudeau’s principal advisor Gerald Butts also called it quits. Then a second Liberal minister decided to step down. Jane Philpott, the Treasury Board president and the minister of digital government, departed Trudeau’s cabinet Monday, citing concerns over the handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair.

Here we go again?

Last Wednesday, Wilson-Raybould told the House justice committee she faced “veiled threats” in an “inappropriate effort” to sway her into providing SNC-Lavalin with a deferred prosecution agreement as the company faces criminal charges.

While Wilson-Raybould never accused the prime minister of doing anything illegal, Levine suggests the optics surrounding this controversy flies in the face of expectations.

“Trudeau represented a new generation, a new style, and not the same old Liberal party. And this scandal really fits a narrative that I think the opposition parties are, of course, emphasizing that it’s ‘plus ça change,'” Levine said, a French saying that means the more that changes, the more it’s the same thing.

“‘Here we go again with the Liberals cutting deals and political pressure in order to support allies, especially allies in Quebec.'”

Meanwhile, last week’s public testimony of Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, accused Trump of being a “racist,” “conman” and a “cheat.” While Levine says those revelations were certainly “eyebrow raising,” many of the scandals Trump faces have been following him for years now.

There have been comparisons between Trudeau and Trump since the latter became U.S. president in 2017. That’s when Ipsos Public Affairs Canada conducted a poll of 2,000 Canadians for Yahoo Canada that suggested Trudeau “crushed” Trump on issues related to style, according to Ipsos vice-president Sean Simpson.

Canadians were asked about issues such as equal rights protections, media relations, protecting the environment, international relations, connecting with voters, and more.

“In every case, more Canadians prefer Trudeau to Trump, but in many cases, they’re not necessarily thrilled with Trudeau, either,” Simpson said in 2017.

Fast forward two years, and neither leader appears to have the support of most of their citizens. FiveThirtyEight, a website that calculates the U.S. president’s approval rating based on all polls, suggests only 42 per cent approve of Trump as of March 1. The CBC’s Poll Tracker, an aggregation of all publicly available polls, has the Liberals virtually tied with the Conservatives at around 35 per cent support in an analysis published on Feb. 21.

‘Big differences’ between Canada, U.S.

The most glaring contrast between these two world leaders is where they’re from, Levine notes.

“There’s big differences between the U.S. and Canada in terms of our level of partisanship and the extent to which our partisanship, or partisan identity, affects our views of essentially, the whole political universe,” Levine explained.

Relatively speaking, there’s much weaker partisanship in Canada compared to the U.S., which means there’s more of a chance of Canadians changing their minds when it’s time to vote, according to the University of Toronto professor.

“A surprising number of Americans will express hesitation about their children marrying someone with a different political identity,” Levine said. “We don’t really have that in Canada.”

Another key distinction between what’s going on with Trudeau compared to Trump is that the former appears to be facing pushback from members of his own party, whereas Republicans south of the border rarely rebuke Trump, if at all.

“A lot of stalwart Liberals are very disappointed in Prime Minister Trudeau,” Levine said of recent events. “Prime Minister Trudeau may indeed be facing a very difficult political future precisely because so much of this criticism is coming from party allies.”

The optics may not look good for Trudeau right now, but it may be too early to write off his re-election chances seven months before an election. When compared to Trump, Levine suggests there’s still hope for the younger leader.

“Trudeau has the opportunity,” Levine asserted, adding there’s still plenty of time to reshape the conversation.

“If I was a political consultant in either country, I’d be more excited to work for Trudeau and say ‘we can undo this damage. We may not be able to undo all of it, but right now could be the bottom point.'”