the resignation of gerald butts is a major change in the canadian political landscape, heading into the 2019 election. while he appears to be taking the fall for the snc-lavelin scandal, i suspect that this is actually somewhat of a smokescreen for a shift in policy direction.

i've been stating for months - years - that the party needs to flex it's muscles, and change it's policy direction, before trudeau leads them so far to the right that they end up politically irrelevant. i don't think that anybody actually voted for justin trudeau. when you strip away the layers of nostalgia for his father, of partisan liberal support, of stolen ndp positions (all of which have been abandoned) and of anti-harperism, the only thing that trudeau was actually running on as an individual was marijuana, relegating his political base to fickle first-time voters. and, now we're making major shifts in foreign policy that are undoing the party's legacy, and really flipping their branding over.

recent polling suggests the liberals are in fact in trouble. and, why wouldn't they be? we voted harper out with disdain, only for him to reappear in a prom dress.

but, it's not entirely clear yet which side of the argument won this debate. and, that is what we're going to figure out in the upcoming days and weeks: was butts pushed out by the party's old guard, which is trying to take control of a sinking ship, or was he a victim of his own success - purged by a party that wants to realign itself on the right.