Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is suddenly without the assistance of one of his longest advisers just as the threat of being forced into an early election has been heightened.
Jeremy Broadhurst resigned as the Liberal Party of Canada’s national campaign director on Thursday, one day after NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh ended the agreement supporting the Liberals on key votes.
In a statement on his decision to resign, which was first reported by the Toronto Star, Broadhurst cited the toll two decades and five national campaigns have taken on himself and his family.
He says the upcoming federal election could be the most critical federal campaign of his life, and the party deserves a campaign director who can bring more energy and devotion to the job.
Broadhurst has been a Liberal staffer in some form for the better part of 25 years, serving multiple times as chief of staff or adviser to several leaders and cabinet ministers.
Broadhurst was national director of the Liberal Party of Canada from 2013 to 2015 and helped retool the Liberal data machine into an operation that helped them win the 2015 election.
He worked in the Prime Minister’s Office after the 2015 win, and in 2019 was elevated to campaign director.
He returned to the campaign director post for the 2023 election a year ago, but gave up the post Thursday.
The next election has to be held by next fall, but with the Liberal-NDP confidence and supply agreement no longer in place, the odds are higher that the government will be voted down in Parliament before then.
The Liberals have trailed the Conservatives in polls by double-digits for almost a year and would lose if an election were held now.
In his statement, Broadhurst took an apparent swipe at the Conservatives, saying Canadians will have to decide whether to elect a party that is “banking on the assumption that Canadians are willing to forsake our commitment to fairness, equality, justice and progress for an agenda that is little more than simple slogans and cheap shots.”
He said Canadians will have to decide what kind of politics they want “before it is too late to stop at our border a brand of politics that stokes fears and seeks to divide us.”
Broadhurst said he is “still committed to the Liberal Party of Canada and to the Prime Minister,” but that it is “time to make way for others.”