‘The leader is the leader,’ Minister François-Philippe Champagne hedges when asked if he supports Trudeau

Pressure continues to mount on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reconsider his future as leader, as he is receiving a marked lack of support from three senior Liberals in the wake of this week’s shocking loss in a Toronto by-election.

On Thursday, The Globe and Mail spoke with a current federal minister, a recently ousted cabinet colleague and a former premier about Mr. Trudeau’s position atop the Liberal Party.

The first, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne, waffled with an equivocating response he repeated several times. Former justice minister David Lametti blamed the by-election loss in Toronto-St. Paul’s, which the Liberals held since 1993, on “fatigue with the government and the current Prime Minister.” And Christy Clark, B.C. premier from 2011 to 2017, said it was time for Mr. Trudeau to go.

In the wake of the unexpected by-election defeat in fortress Toronto, where the Liberals previously held all the seats, federal cabinet ministers have been pushed on whether they still support him. Mr. Champagne was the first one to hedge.

“The leader is the leader,” Mr. Champagne told The Globe and Mail when asked if Mr. Trudeau is the right person to carry the Liberals into the next election, adding the government needs to focus on listening to Canadians.

Pressed several times to be more clear about whether Mr. Trudeau should remain, he would only repeat “the leader is the leader.” Finally, on the sixth attempt, when offered a yes or no on whether the Liberal Party should consider changing its leader, Mr. Champagne said: “No. Like I said, the leader is the leader. We need to focus now on what matters to Canadians.”

His former cabinet colleague, David Lametti, said Mr. Trudeau “needs to be thinking about protecting the legacy of a very progressive government” and “the future of the Liberal Party as a progressive party moving forward.”

But Mr. Lametti, who was removed as justice minister last July by Mr. Trudeau and resigned his seat in January, stopped short of calling for the Prime Minister’s ouster.

“We’re here because he brought us here in 2015, and so he’s earned the right to decide,” he said.

That sentiment is a widely held belief within Mr. Trudeau’s caucus. However, Ms. Clark, who worked for former prime minister Jean Chrétien, said “the leader needs to be replaced.”

Ms. Clark said the stunning upset in Toronto-St. Paul’s is a pronouncement on the leader rather than the party, given that the Liberals held the seat under Mr. Trudeau’s much less popular predecessors, such as Michael Ignatieff and Stéphane Dion.

“It’s tough to make the argument that there doesn’t need to be change at the top,” Ms. Clark said.

Beyond the leader, she said the party needs to change its focus and lay out an economic agenda.

“This government hasn’t been focused on economic growth, we’re sliding back in our standard of living,” Ms. Clark said. “The Liberal Party of Canada has to get back to being a party of job creation and of fatter wallets for Canadians.”

She said that’s what the Liberal Party was about under Mr. Chrétien – whose 1990 leadership campaign and his 1993 election she worked for – and subsequent prime minister Paul Martin, and that Liberals from that generation “want our party back.”

Ms. Clark has been rumoured to be considering a federal leadership run, but she said Thursday that, at the moment, she’s not planning one and noted the position isn’t open. However, she said people do want her to run.

She said Liberal MPs “need to be thinking about the bigger picture for our party” and said they could start by having private conversations with Mr. Trudeau “about whether or not they think he continues to be an asset to our party.”

However, prior to Ms. Clark’s interview, none of the Liberals The Globe spoke with this week believed an internal revolt was in the offing. Some MPs expressed personal loyalty to Mr. Trudeau, even as they acknowledged that the loss of a stronghold signalled their own seats were even more at risk.

Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal said Thursday that he and the Manitoba caucus “are 100 per cent supportive of the Prime Minister going forward as our leader.”

Internally, the Prime Minister’s Office is also downplaying the significance of the loss in Toronto-St. Paul’s. The Liberals held it for the past three decades, most of the time under former MP Carolyn Bennett. Prior to that, it was a bellwether riding, alternating red and blue.

On a Thursday call with senior ministerial staff, the Prime Minister’s Office tried to argue that Toronto-St. Paul’s wasn’t a Liberal stronghold, but rather a Bennett stronghold, according to two sources who were in the meeting.

The Globe is not identifying the sources because they were not permitted to divulge the private discussions.

With a report from Bill Curry.