New Liberal campaign director to present election plan Wednesday as MPs request vote on Trudeau’s leadership
Newly appointed Liberal campaign director Andrew Bevan is expected to present the party’s election strategy to the national caucus on Wednesday—at the same meeting some MPs plan to press for a secret ballot on Justin Trudeau’s future as leader.
Bevan’s deputy, Marjorie Michel, is anticipated to join in presenting the party’s campaign readiness plan at the meeting.
“As national campaign director, Andrew Bevan will regularly attend national caucus to update Liberal MPs on the strategy and planning of our campaign,” wrote Parker Lund, the Liberal Party’s director, in response to The Hill Times’ questions about Bevan’s presentation to the caucus on Oct. 30.
Bevan’s presentation comes one week after the caucus reckoning at the previous national meeting, where Liberal sources said about 50 MPs stood to address the question of Trudeau’s (Papineau, Que.) leadership—with about half calling on him to step down.
This week will be the first time Bevan and Michel meet with caucus after taking on their new roles on Oct. 13. Both are familiar faces in the inner circle, with Bevan serving as Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s (University-Rosedale, Ont.) chief of staff since October 2023, and Michel as Trudeau’s deputy chief of staff since October 2021.
Bevan takes over the campaign strategy from Jeremy Broadhurst, who resigned in September for family reasons. Prior to stepping down, he reportedly told the prime minister that the Liberals could not win the next election with Trudeau at the helm, according to the Toronto Star. The paper reported Broadhurst saying he thought the party’s campaign director should be someone who believes in the prime minister’s prospects.
Bevan and Michel were scheduled to give their presentation last week but the plan changed due to lengthy internal caucus discussions about Trudeau’s leadership. The planned two-hour meeting, which started at 10 a.m., extended well past 1 p.m. as the discussion continued. Both Bevan and Michel waited outside the caucus room and ultimately left without presenting. Usually, the Prime Minister’s Office senior staff attend every national caucus meeting, but last week’s meeting was one of the few since 2015 where staff were barred from attending.
It’s expected that following Bevan’s election presentation on Oct. 30, MPs will revisit the question of Trudeau’s leadership. At last week’s caucus meeting, about 24 MPs either made explicit their position that Trudeau should resign as leader, or shared comments other MPs interpreted as a call for Trudeau to step down.
Liberal MPs described last week’s meeting as very respectful, with a vigorous discussion on leadership. Toward the end of the meeting, Trudeau told MPs he would reflect on the views expressed about his leadership. But, the very next day, he announced he had no intention of stepping down. This week’s caucus meeting is expected to return to this topic.
After leaving national caucus last week, Trudeau did not stop to take questions from the media. While passing by reporters, he only commented that the Liberal Party is “strong and united.” But some dissenting MPs disagreed with that assessment in interviews with The Hill Times following the meeting
“It’s fair to say very few of us think we’re either strong or united,” said one Liberal MP, who spoke on not for attribution to express their views candidly.
This week, dissenting MPs are expected to push for a secret ballot vote on Trudeau’s leadership, though it’s unlikely the prime minister will agree to it. The dissenting MPs also question Freeland’s claim that the prime minister has the support of the “vast majority” of caucus members. If that’s true, they ask, why won’t he prove it?
CBC reported that at least three Liberal MPs were publicly calling for a secret vote. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Ont.) called it “the way to move forward” and the “best thing” for both the party and country, while Wayne Long (Saint John—Rothesay, N.B.) said it was the best solution to address the matter “once and for all” to “put it to bed.”
Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi (Pierrefonds—Dollard, Que.) said tallying MP positions could to put the matter to rest.
“A secret ballot would put this to rest. We need to have some finality to this. I think that would help us as a party move beyond this,” he said, per CBC.
Speaking to The Hill Times, several MPs referenced a recent interview with former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, in which he said that if he were in Trudeau’s shoes, he would step down.
“If it were me, I would,” McKenna told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos on Oct. 27.
“I would be leaving, simply because, 10 years, I think, is a natural life expectancy of every commodity we have, from a watch to a phone, even to a political term.”
Similarly, Scott Reid, former communications director to former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, commented that despite Trudeau’s statement that he’s staying on, the issue remains unresolved.
“If the prime minister’s objective over the last 48 hours is to demonstrate closure on this issue, and to say, ‘all right, we’ve given our chance, we listened, we were respectful, and now it’s time to move forward,” Reid told CTV on Oct.27. “But [I] don’t think that objective has been realized. There’s no whistling past this graveyard. There’s going to be more to come. That’s pretty clear.”
arana@hilltimes.com
The Hill Times
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