Trudeau: Are The Departure Talks And Negotiations Already Ongoing?

I think so. It feels like the outgoing camp and the likely incoming one are hashing out an agreement leading to Trudeau's departure. It's the opposite of Chrétien and Martin, where the latter's people were trying to bully Chrétien out of the job.

Liberals already know that if they go into the next election with a current cabinet member, that they'll lose spectacularly to the CPC and Poilièvre. Pierre right now is the change agent, so if you're a Liberal, how do you blunt or weaken that factor?

Quite simply, you go with a leader who's not even remotely associated with this disaster of a government. So, at least one candidate is already in the unofficial running. My sense is that it won't exactly be a coronation but more of a handing off of the baton to an almost inevitable successor.

As I said, Trudeau's departure has to be negotiation item one. Ideally, for the incoming group, it would probably be a good idea if Trudeau took his walk in the leaves. That would facilitate the organizing of a leadership race, which more than likely would be a foregone conclusion. A multi-candidate race with a quiet understanding of who is going to win. 

Once Trudeau goes, it's already a new ballgame on the ground, one where the CPC will have to be strategically at their very best to blunt Liberal momentum coming out of a leadership convention. With a new leader running in the next election, there will be no room for strategic error in that campaign. In short, it's very much Poilièvre's election to lose, if he doesn't strategically play his cards right. I think we'll still win under such a scenario, but the huge and perhaps unprecedented CPC landslide will certainly go out the window with a new Liberal leader. Interesting times ahead.