Quebec MPs are adding to the pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step aside as leader. The province’s caucus chair, Stéphane Lauzon, consulted with MPs individually over the holidays and communicated the caucus position to its national leadership, according to sources who spoke to CBC News.
Quebec caucus chair Stéphane Lauzon consulted with MPs individually over the holidays, sources tell CBC News
Quebec MPs are adding to the pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step aside as leader.
Quebec caucus chair Stéphane Lauzon consulted with MPs individually over the holidays and communicated the caucus position to the national caucus leadership, according to sources who spoke to CBC News.
One Quebec Liberal MP told CBC News that the consensus among them is that Trudeau should step down.
The MP spoke to CBC News on the condition that they not be named due to caucus confidentiality.
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In an interview with CBC News Tuesday, Quebec Liberal MP Alexandra Mendès says it’s become ‘very, very evident that our constituents will not renew their confidence in us’ if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remains.
Another MP, Alexandra Mendès, told CBC News that she understands the caucus consensus to be that “the prime minister should step away.”
“That has been the consensus that was communicated to the caucus chair and that he was meant to convey to the national caucus.”
Mendès says she was not one of the MPs that Lauzon consulted. She says this was likely due to her already openly calling for the prime minister to step down weeks ago.
The Quebec Liberal caucus is scheduled to meet virtually in caucus on Jan. 9.
Mendès also spoke to Radio-Canada as well in an interview in French and said the call for Trudeau to leave was not “necessarily unanimous.”
Radio-Canada contacted all the MPs in the Quebec caucus, but was unable to corroborate Mendès’s statements.
Only four MPs — Mendès, Sophie Chatel, Anthony Housefather and Joël Lightbound — confirmed that they were calling for Trudeau to step down.
All four had already expressed this point of view at the start of the crisis caused by Chrystia Freeland’s resignation earlier in December.
The website iPolitics first reported on the Quebec caucus consensus Monday.
CBC News has reached out to Lauzon, who is currently on vacation, for comment.
But in a statement to Politico on Tuesday, Lauzon said, “No letter has been sent to the prime minister from the Quebec caucus. Unfortunately, what happens in the Quebec caucus stays in the caucus.”
The prime minister has been on holiday in B.C. with his family and is understood to be taking time to reflect on his future.
The Atlantic and Ontario regional Liberal caucuses have already signalled the consensus among their respective MPs that Trudeau should resign, and called on the prime minister to step down as party leader last week.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Racy Rafique is an associate producer for CBC’s national television program Power & Politics. You can reach her at reathia.rafique@cbc.ca
With files from Jennifer Yoon
