Trudeau says he will stay on as Prime Minister after major election loss

One week after the the Liberal Party suffered a historic defeat in the byelection of the federal Toronto-St. Paul's riding, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came out and stated that he is committed to staying on as the country's leader.

"There's always going to be lots of reflection after a tough loss, but there's also so much to do," Trudeau told CBC's Heather Hiscox while answering a question from her about his future in politics following the loss according to CBC News.

A Conservative Party hadn't been competitive in the Toronto-St. Paul's riding since the 1980s according to CBC News. However, Conservative Don Stewart secured an astonishing win in the riding, beating candidate Leslie Church by 590 votes.

Photo Credit: Facebook @votedonstewart

Stewart's vote margin may not sound like much but it may surprise you to learn that the Liberal Party won Toronto-St. Paul's in 2021 by more than 10,000 votes, which shows just how much Canadian politics may have changed since then.

"I am committed to doing the work of building a better Canada every single day, so I look forward to next year's Canada Day and I look forward to many more Canada Days," Trudeau told Hiscox as he reflected on the loss in Toronto.

Let's take a look at what happened and recent polling that showed most Canadians are ready to see Trudeau step down as Prime Minister.  On June 24th, the Liberal Party suffered its historic loss in downtown Toronto, putting Trudeau's future as party leader and Prime Minister in doubt. 

"This is not a normal defeat," Phillipe Fournier of 338Canada, a website that publishes a model of statistical electoral projections based on a variety of factors, explained to CTV News about the Liberal loss in the Toronto-St. Paul's riding. 

Fournier went on to say Trudeau and the Liberals were heading for a “historic defeat” in the next general election, a sentiment that is being brought up in news reports all across the country after the Conservative Party flipped Toronto-St. Paul's. 

Trudeau was already facing increasingly bad omens before the byelection in Toronto-St. Paul's. Polling released before the election showed that a majority of Canadians thought it was time for the Prime Minister to step down from power. 

According to a poll by Ipsos carried out exclusively for Global News, the vast majority of Canadians were ready for a change of leadership. The poll found most Canadians want Trudeau to step down as Prime Minister.

Ipsos discovered that 68% of the 1,001 Canadians it surveyed between June 12th and 14th want Trudeau to step down as leader of the country according to the news organization. 

“This is as bad as we’ve seen it for Trudeau. It’s close to rock bottom,” explained Ipsos Chief Executive Officer Darrell Bricker about the situation the Prime Minister is facing at the moment.

The desire to see Trudeau step down was highest in Alberta (79%) and Atlantic Canada (76%). 75% of respondents also reported they wanted another party to take over power at the federal level. 

Ipsos found that if the election were held on the days it administered its survey, 42% of respondents would choose to vote for the Conservative Party over the other parties. 

The Liberal Party would have received 24% of the vote while the New Democratic Party would have snatched 18%, matching the Conservative Party when combined together. 

Bicker explained that the Liberals “have thrown everything they can think of at changing this dynamic,” but the Ipsos CEO added nothing has worked so far. “It’s frozen in solid.”

The polling from Ipsos showed Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre had pulled far ahead of Trudeau with a big 19-point lead concerning leadership perceptions with Canadian voters. 

Only 25% of respondents thought Trudeau would make the best Prime Minister whereas 44% thought Poilievre was the best option. 43% thought the same of Jagmeet Singh. 

Ipsos made a similar discovery when it came to leadership performance approval, 50% approved of Poilievre while 37% approved of Trudeau and 47% approved of Singh. 

The June 24th byelection in Toronto-St. Paul's proved to be an excellent real-world assessment and verification of the current unhappiness with Liberal leadership in the country.  

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By awmcphee, Own work, CC0

CBC News reported before the byelection that some voters in the country saw the byelection in Toronto St. Paul's as a referendum on Trudeau.  If true, this could mean the Prime Minister is in more trouble than before the byelection. 

“St Paul’s will show how polling translates into votes. If the Liberals lose what should be an easy win, it shows how far they have fallen in voter esteem,” Bricker explained. What will happen now that Trudeau's Liberals have lost that election has yet to be seen. 

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