What does the Toronto–St. Paul's result mean for Liberal MPs in B.C.?

Well, Monday's by election result in the rioting of Toronto. St. Paul has been in the news this week, and Conservative candidate Don Stewart captured the longtime Liberal stronghold. And the wind casts doubt on the future of the Liberal Party and the safety of many Liberal ridings right across the country. It also raises questions about Justin Trudeau's future at the helm of the Liberal Party. Lauren Deep Surai is the Liberal MP for Surrey Center. He joins us this morning. Good morning to you, Randy. Good morning and good morning to all your listeners. Thank you for being with us. Do you think the Prime Minister should stay on as party leader? Look, that's a decision I think he's got to make. I think there's a lot of introspection after the writing loss. This is something that we've got to look at as a caucus and the leadership has to look at it from their perspective as well. Prior to this, every by election that we had were incumbent incumbents had laughter or whether for death or other reasons we had actually done very well and recovered those seats. So sometimes, most of the times actually, one that would more, more votes. This is the first such a by election that turned out this way. Yeah. This is a riding that has been held by the Liberals for more than 25 years. I mean, this is considered one of the strongest Liberal ridings in the country. It's in Metro Toronto, a very important riding, very symbolic for the way, you know, Toronto is thinking about the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister right now. Is it not? Is it not indicative of what people are thinking? Look, if there's lots of really big issues, the cost of housing, inflation, geopolitical situations in the Middle East and other places in Ukraine and Russia that that play factors. And then obviously those are all important to us and we're looking at them very closely. And I thought the party is as well. So there's no question about it. It's it's something that's a sucker punch. And so you got to wake up to it and you got to look at it and figure out what went wrong, what needs to change. And, and that's a big top process that's probably going on in the party. In all of those issues you mentioned, how often do people, your constituents talk to you about the Prime Minister himself? And look, it does come up from time to time. People either like them a lot or you don't have their displeasure with them as well. But that's I think part of the game when you're the leadership helm, not all your decisions are going to be popular with everyone. And being in government is much more difficult than being in opposition where you have to take stands that are not, you know, the they have to work for the country. They have to consider everything from our our our trade to our rights to our economic well-being. And they got to be balanced. And some people won't be happy with those decisions from time to time. So, but that's what the governments have to do. And they have to recalibrate from time to time as well. And I think this might be that moment. And and do you think what's best for the party and for the fortunes of the party? Do you think what's best for the party is that Justin Trudeau stay on his leader through the next election? Well, I think right now he's our leader. He's the one who's at the helm of the ship and, and, and they can't. I think it's something he's a pretty reflective individual. He will be looking at this. I think it's too early to really jump ship and, and make any other comments. I think everybody is looking at this. The Ontario MPs are looking at this. I think we're having a caucus retreat at the end of summer. I'm sure there'll be discussions before that as well. Brian Wister was just here in the in British Columbia yesterday. So there's a lot of a lot of soul searching that'll be going on. And and then I think you'll see decisions come out shortly after, whether they're policy decisions or whether they're leadership decisions or whether they're different perspectives on how to carry forward. Those will happen after a lot of serious reflection. It will be a knee jerk reaction. Is there enough time between that caucus meeting in the next election to even if you wanted to choose another leader, it would there be enough to choose another leader and have them ready to run in an election? Well, look I I've my last three elections I've seen notice one thing is that anything can happen in the last three to four weeks of an election. So a public opinion boils can change. The last 2015 were in 3rd place words out in first place and with a majority government to 2019-2020 one both times pundits that thought we were done we still emerged and and won. So things are different all the time. I think the issues that are now or something is very different from the time of the election. So, so time will tell in that respects, but also different, different economic issues. If interest rates are lower, if housing starts are strong, different perspectives come out. It doesn't seem to, I, I mean, when you talk to people, when I hear from people, certainly there's something about, you know, the personality of the Prime Minister. There is the fact that he's been around for nine years and that, you know, people, a lot of people say to me, they think it's time for him to move on. Even people who support the Liberal Party, you don't hear that. So look, we hear that all the time. I'm not going to say we don't hear that. We have your comments. And like I said, some people very like him a lot and some people don't, they express your opinions in that regard. He's been a very bold Prime Minister. He's done a lot of massive policy changes and, and, and programming and from dental care to child care to pharmacare. Now these are very bold moves that sometimes don't happen for 30-40 years and all done in, in, in, in a span of eight years. So they're very bold, bold. And sometimes some people like them and some people don't. So sure. But I mean, in politics, people tend to talk about personalities an awful lot. And so here you are, you know, talking about about issues. But but how often do those issues get overshadowed by people's opinions of the Prime Minister? You may want to, you know, talk about changes to capital gains, but they want to talk about how they don't like Trudeau. Look, I think ever since the Trump election, the original election in 2016 in the US, there is become a very toxic culture in in politics and, and the way the public decorum is in terms of politics. And I think that's, that's brought out a nastiness that we haven't really seen before and in Canadian politics. But there's also there are people have different opinions of it. Not everyone is expected to agree with with the leadership and and with the the Prime Minister of Canada express them. But I think it should be in a civil matter. It should be a policy rather than personality points. And unfortunately, I will say people have pointed out to being against people's personalities more so than policy and otherwise. We have been talking about Surrey on this program is really a battleground in the in the in the provincial election. Does Saint Paul, the result in Saint Paul, though, Does that tell us more about what we could see in the federal election? Look, I mean, we're always going to be looking at that. We have a, we will probably be having a by election here with John Aldeg, former MP stepping aside. So these are things that the caucus members out here will be looking at. We'll be talking to our team in BC and seeing what issues are important for British Columbians and, and how we address those and make sure that that that riding stays a, a Liberal riding. Randeep Sarai, pleasure to hear you this morning. Thank you for taking the time with us. Absolutely my pleasure, always appreciate it, Brandeep Sirai, Liberal Member of Parliament for Surrey, sent.