The Purple Light: Liberals’ National Campaign Director Quits: “Trudeau Can’t Win”

Friday, September 6, 2024

Liberals’ National Campaign Director Quits: “Trudeau Can’t Win”

Posted by Steve Beckow

on September 6, 2024

Liberals’ national campaign director tells Justin Trudeau he is quitting

Althea Raj, Toronto Star, Sept. 5, 2024

(https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/liberals-national-campaign-director-tells-justin-trudeau-he-is-quitting/article_8d01add6-670d-11ef-acde-7322956cb786.html)

Jeremy Broadhurst confirmed Thursday that he is stepping down as the federal Liberal party’s national campaign director, after the Star reported that he had privately told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month of his intention to resign.

OTTAWA — Jeremy Broadhurst confirmed Thursday he is stepping down as the federal Liberal party’s national campaign director, after the Star reported he had privately told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month of his intention to resign.

The news blindsided Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford. According to one individual who spoke on condition of anonymity, Broadhurst told the prime minister he didn’t think Trudeau could win the next election and that Broadhurst should be replaced with someone who felt Trudeau could win a fourth term.

Another Liberal said Broadhurst told Trudeau he didn’t have the fight in him to continue. A third suggested Broadhurst might just have needed additional help at Liberal party headquarters to turn things around. The news was so closely guarded that many senior staff and caucus were kept in the dark.

Broadhurst had avoided all calls and messages requesting comment for the past seven days. Telford told the Star “your sources aren’t good” but did not deny the story, given multiple chances. The party’s national director, Azam Ishmael, told the Star last Friday that Broadhurst hadn’t quit but would not say whether Broadhurst had tried to quit, or would be leaving. “I’ve got nothing to add from above.” It wasn’t clear whether Ishmael was aware of the news, and he avoided all further calls. Telford deferred to Ishmael’s response.

After the Star broke the news Thursday, Broadhurst issued a statement in which he confirmed he was leaving, and that his last day would be Sept. 30.

He wrote that he considered the next election to be the “most critical federal election campaign of (his) life,” one in which Canadians would choose what kind of role they wanted the government to play and what kind of politics “they find acceptable before it is too late to stop at our border a brand of politics that stokes fears and seeks to divide us with a vision of a zero-sum world where support for one person must represent setback for someone else.”

Given the stakes involved, Broadhurst wrote, Trudeau, the Liberal party and candidates deserved someone who could “bring more energy and devotion to the job than I can at this stage of my life.” He cited his 20-plus years in politics and his family’s sacrifice over the years, and said he could not ask them to “sacrifice another year.”

“Make no mistake, I am still committed to the Liberal Party of Canada and to the prime minister,” he wrote. “ … but it is time to make way for others and to find new ways to help.”

Broadhurst was appointed national campaign director in 2023, two years before the next expected campaign, to be the Liberals’ point man on the next election. His job was to make sure the party platform, messaging, candidates, money, ad buys and volunteers were ready to go once the election was called. Although the contest isn’t scheduled until October 2025, the Liberals hold a minority of the seats in the House of Commons and an election can be triggered if the Liberals cannot get either the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, or the Conservatives to side with them during a confidence vote. Days ago, Broadhurst was still scheduled to brief members of Parliament at national caucus meetings next week in Nanaimo.

As of Thursday afternoon, discussions were still ongoing as to who would replace him.

There are two tough byelections ahead for the Liberals on Sept. 16 — in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood–Transcona, which is likely a Conservative or NDP win, and in Montreal, where there is a race for the longtime Liberal seat of LaSalle–Émard–Verdun, a contest that may be a tough three-way fight between the Grits, NDP and Bloc Québécois. A defeat there could renew calls for the prime minister to step aside.

Publicly, Trudeau has been adamant he is sticking around for a fourth election. Last month, during the government’s cabinet retreat in Halifax, a parade of ministers took turns at the microphone pledging their support for the prime minister.

But public opinion polling shows there is little appetite across the country for Trudeau or a fourth Liberal term. The Liberals continue to trail Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives in those polls by 20 percentage points, with the Tories in comfortable majority-government territory.

This summer, several Liberal MPs added their names to the growing list of those who won’t be seeking re-election, including a handful of cabinet ministers. Several of those bowing out of the next contest hold seats in ridings that will be tough races to win, especially with an unpopular leader. They have been told to hold announcements, if they can, until January.

Long seen as a party loyalist, Broadhurst was personally selected by Telford after the Liberals’ big win in 2015 to lead the party as national director. He went on to serve as a senior adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office and as well as to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, and played key roles in the last two elections, including as national campaign director in 2019.

Steve Beckow