With the bombshell resignation of Treasury Board president Jane Philpott in the wake of the testimony of Jody Wilson-Raybould, the chances for Justin Trudeau and his government to get out of this mess got much more difficult.  The loss of one of his most competent and respected ministers means that this can't be just chalked up to "sour grapes" on the part of a single minister, or that there is nothing to see here, move along.  In her resignation letter, Philpott clearly articulated that she couldn't go along with Cabinet solidarity on this matter and that she no longer had confidence in the government's handling of the matter, and removed herself from a situation where she would be forced to agree with the government's position in light of the allegations that Wilson-Raybould has been making.

While I still maintain that all of the political obituaries for Trudeau written last week were premature, this latest resignation shows that he still hasn't staunched the bleeding, and that it will be harder for him to come back from this intact than it was a few days ago.  The brand damage is more acute, and it's clear that the government's line is not resonating even within its own inner circle.  Not that this should be a surprise this government has proven time and again that it is utterly incompetent at issues management and in communicating their way out of a wet paper bag.  If there's any way for them to step all over their message, they will time and again, starting with a legalistic response for the first twenty-four hours, then dripping out more details that confounds their narrative, and finally with a packaged talking point that they will repeat over and over.  It never fails.

It has been noted that there has been no contrition from Trudeau on any of this, even after Philpott's resignation, but one imagines that it's a bit of a double-edged sword.  If Trudeau sounds contrite, it means that he's admitting wrongdoing, which is what he's been trying to avoid doing.  It's hard to maintain that everything was above-board and that this is all just a difference of opinion if you start sounding like there was a problem that you need to be sorry about why not just admit that Wilson-Raybould was inappropriately pressured?  And yet, by not offering any hint of contrition, it seems to make things worse.

A few people made the point that Philpott seemed to be jumping the gun, before there had been any conclusion from any sort of investigation, but we need to remember that the options for any clarity is pretty much non-existent.  The Justice committee will come out with its partisan report, while the Ethics Commissioner is likely to note that he has no legislative mandate to look into this matter.  The NDP have been demanding an independent inquiry, which the Conservatives have tepidly supported (they of course think that the RCMP should be looking into this, based on a massive over reading of the Criminal Code), but even there, it's not a matter of laws that this issue boils down to it's a murky grey area of where the line of appropriateness gets drawn.  A judge-led inquiry can't offer answers, and I suspect that Trudeau knows this as well, but the opposition wants their own Gomery commission to leave Trudeau with a black eye (well, more than the self-inflicted one he's currently sporting).

At this point, is seems pretty clear that there needs to be a bloodletting in the PMO, that Gerald Butts' departure wasn't enough.  And while accepting a raft of resignations (because that's likely how this will go) may look like contrition, Trudeau is likely to spin this as being part of the "important discussion" of how the federal ministry conducts itself lines that he debuted in his speech post-Philpott resignation.  It'll be about "renewal," and "better is always possible," and getting "election-ready," but not an actual admission that there was anything wrong.  How it looks after the heads roll, and who fills those positions (as in, are they yet more Queen's Park refugees with centralizing tendencies), will determine how seriously he takes the exercise and those "important discussions" that he says he's listening to.  But it's just as likely that those were mouthed platitudes, like so many others he has offered.

There's also the question of how tenable Trudeau's leadership remains in caucus.  There were a number of pledges of loyalty in the wake of Philpott's resignation, and while a few outspoken MPs have sided with Wilson-Raybould, I haven't gotten the sense of widespread discontent not that it would matter, given that the caucus didn't select him, and Trudeau is well aware that they can't fire him.  Now, if a number of MPs start making moves to leave caucus, then that might be a different story, but so far, they haven't, and even the departures from Cabinet have not been a repudiation of the party or its platform.  Trudeau has not moved to kick Wilson-Raybould out of caucus, and it looks increasingly unlikely that he will, given that he talked about how a "democracy like ours" is allowed to have disagreement and debate, and that we should encourage it.  Mind you, that won't stop the media from enforcing caucus discipline on his behalf.

With that said, I remain unconvinced that this will topple Trudeau as party leader.  He remains too popular with too much of the Liberal base, and trying to change horses this close to an election under the current party rules would be an invitation to chaos not that it would really change anything given that the leadership selection system remains fundamentally broken, and any new leader would still not be accountable to caucus.  But this continues to hurt Trudeau and his brand, and it very likely will mean lost seats, and will likely make it more difficult for him to stay on for a full second mandate.  He won't be able to sell his same message of doing politics differently, and if he tries and he just might, given how much he hews to a message track that could be what winds up costing him the most in the end.

Photo Credit: CBC News