Chief Strategy Officer Marci Surkes spoke to the Wall Street Journal about the current political atmosphere and the mood for change.

There was “an inability to feel resonant, and just being really slow off the mark to be able to adapt and react to the post-pandemic reality,” Marci Surkes, a strategic adviser at Ottawa public affairs firm Compass Rose and a former Trudeau adviser, said of the Liberal government’s struggles. Trudeau and officials are now playing catch-up in addressing voter concerns over inflation, housing shortages and affordability, and slowing the pace of immigration intake.

The failure so far to reverse declining polling numbers is “slowly but steadily eating away at the mood and morale of the team,” Surkes said, “with one exception — the prime minister.”