'4 more ministers of Trudeau cabinet planning departures'

Canada PM Justin Trudeau will shuffle his cabinet in the coming weeks as a handful of ministers have decided not to run in the next election, according to people familiar with the matter.

The four ministers expected to leave cabinet — Carla Qualtrough, MarieClaude Bibeau, Dan Vandal and Filomena Tassi — are not in major portfolios, and for now there is no sign Trudeau intends to make sweeping changes to his front bench. But with brewing discontent in his caucus over the Liberal Party’s prolonged slump in the polls, the planned departures only add to Trudeau’s troubles as he prepares for an election that could come any time in the next year. The cabinet shuffle is not expected to happen imminently and could even wait until after the US polls, according to officials.

Other ministers have already stepped down from Trudeau’s cabinet. In the past few months, Seamus O’Regan quit his job as labour minister as he didn’t intend to run again and Pablo Rodriguez left as transport minister in order to run for the leadership of Quebec’s provincial Liberal party. Trudeau is under pressure to show his caucus a plan to erode the dominant polling lead enjoyed by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who’s been ahead by around 20 percentage points for over a year now.

There have been reports over past week that some Liberal lawmakers intend to challenge Trudeau at next week’s caucus meeting, either calling on him to resign as leader or to make a bigger shakeup in the people around him.