By rejecting the Reform Act for the third straight time, the Liberal caucus has sent a clear—and disappointing—message: the old ways of doing politics still rule the day. Despite Prime Minister Mark Carney’s lofty rhetoric about ambition, reform, and urgency, his caucus quietly voted on May 25 to preserve a system that puts party leaders above accountability.
It’s a vote that keeps power centralized in the leader’s office and out of the hands of elected MPs—the very people Canadians send to Ottawa to represent them.
The Reform Act, championed by Conservative MP Michael Chong and passed into law a decade ago, is not radical legislation. It simply gives MPs more tools to govern themselves: the ability to trigger a leadership review, appoint an interim leader, expel or readmit a caucus member, and elect or remove the caucus chair. It only applies if MPs vote to adopt these provisions—and the Liberals once again chose not to.
Caucus chair James Maloney confirmed the vote but declined to say more, hiding behind the veil of caucus confidentiality. But Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith broke ranks ahead of the vote, urging his colleagues to embrace the measures not as a threat to Mark Carney’s leadership, but as a long-overdue mechanism of internal party democracy.
He’s right. This isn’t about Carney, or Trudeau before him. It’s about the fundamental health of Canada’s democracy. And for a party that brands itself as modern, progressive, and responsive to voters, the Liberal decision reeks of backroom caution and old-school control.
Carney, for his part, is charging ahead with an ambitious legislative agenda. In his first caucus speech, he promised an aggressive return to Parliament: cutting personal income tax, eliminating GST for first-time homebuyers, and tackling interprovincial trade barriers. He painted a picture of a government that will move faster than any in recent memory, saying: “We’re going to have to do things previously thought impossible.”
But here’s the problem: when a party refuses to give its MPs the power to hold their own leader to account, all that ambition risks becoming top-down management, not democratic reform.
The irony is rich. Just last year, the Liberals were stuck in a leadership limbo as Justin Trudeau stubbornly clung to power while his approval ratings collapsed. Without the Reform Act in place, there was no formal mechanism for caucus to act. Only after Chrystia Freeland’s resignation and months of public pressure did Trudeau finally bow out. That dysfunction could have been avoided—had the party given its MPs the very powers they just refused again.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives—despite their own flaws—continue to embrace the Reform Act. It was under those rules that they expelled MP Derek Sloan and removed leader Erin O’Toole. And after the April election loss, they reaffirmed the rules once more. Leader Pierre Poilievre, who lost his seat but not the party’s confidence, remains in charge—for now—because his caucus has chosen to keep him there. That’s real accountability in action.
If the Liberals want to claim the mantle of renewal and reform under Mark Carney, they need to do more than promise busy legislative calendars and big-picture goals. They need to trust their own MPs with power—and trust Canadians to see that transparency as strength, not weakness.
Until then, all the speeches about affordability, national unity, and Canadian sovereignty will ring a little hollow. Because true democracy doesn’t start with grand visions—it starts with giving elected representatives the tools they need to govern, even when it’s uncomfortable for those at the top.
