if we're seriously talking about this, there is a tradition in the liberal party to alternate between francophone and anglophone leaders, but it hasn't been a very successful strategy since the 80s. since pearson, you've got:

- trudeau (francophone). pm, from...i think it was 68-84....
- john turner (anglophone). lost badly to the francophone mulroney. twice.
- chretien (francophone). pm from 1993-2003.
- paul martin (anglophone). pm from 2003-2006, then lost to harper, partly due to declining support in quebec.
- stephane dion (francophone). dion was badly smeared for his poor english language skills, but was competitive in 2008, holding harper to a minority.
- ignatieff (anglophone). he was completely annihilated in 2011, even losing to the ndp in quebec. this was the worst showing in the liberal party's history,
- trudeau (francophone). pm, 2015-?.

the tory media will no doubt recoil at the thought, as will certain aspects of the liberal party establishment, but i think that dion would have bettered his 2008 results if he were still at the helm in 2011. i think there's little question that he would have held off the dreaded harper majority, at least.

the liberals are consequently in somewhat of a tough spot, in terms of picking a successor. they're supposed to pick an anglophone - but it's an easy prediction to make that, if they do, they'll end up in opposition.

it would probably be a better idea to let an older politician like goodale or bennett take over as an interim leader, and then run a convention.

freeland is toxic. & mckenna is no doubt in trouble in her own riding.

but, a caucus revolt is also defined by it's leaders. we haven't seen any fracture points erupt in public, so it's hard to tell what's going on.

i mentioned a while back that it wasn't clear to me if we were witnessing a revolt by the chretien faction (the old party, which was borderline social democratic) or the continued primacy of what should now be called the ignatieff faction (the neo-liberal branch, of which freeland seems to currently be the face of). i'm still not sure what the truth of it is, but if there are divisions happening, they will present themselves in time.

https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/2019/03/03/who-will-lead-if-the-liberals-toss-trudeau.html