Gun violence, border crossers top of mind for Liberal MPs

OTTAWA — Liberal MPs are flooding into Saskatoon to plot strategy for the fall parliamentary sitting which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says will not include resetting the government’s agenda.

Speaking to reporters in Winnipeg Tuesday, Trudeau said the government will not have a new throne speech this fall, instead continuing work on the promises he was elected on, including help for the middle class and creating good jobs.

“We are delivering on the plan that we proposed to Canadians some three years ago,” he said.

While Trudeau had a pit stop in Winnipeg on his way to the Saskatoon caucus retreat, many of his cabinet ministers were fanning out in and around Saskatoon to talk up the Liberals’ record on the economy, the Canada Child Benefit, and hand out money for crime prevention, infrastructure projects and pulse crops.

But at the caucus retreat, gun violence and border crossers are going to be the main issued raised by Liberal MPs based on what they are hearing in their ridings.

Unlike last year — when backbenchers used the annual end-of-summer retreat to berate the government over proposed tax changes that had enraged small business owners — Liberal MPs seem relatively content with the government’s performance as it heads into the countdown to the next federal election.

That’s despite a challenging summer for the Trudeau government, beset by a court ruling that toppled a central pillar of its climate change strategy and NAFTA negotiations that have dragged on without resolution, punctuated by repeated insults and threats to ruin Canada’s economy from U.S. President Donald Trump.