With Trudeau's Liberals in trouble, is Mark Carney the answer?

With the Liberals' consistently poor polling numbers, and rumours Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could be working to get former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney into politics, political strategists weigh in on whether the former central banker could be the answer to the party's woes.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals remain deeply unpopular, currently trailing Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives by as many as 17 points in the polls, after more than a year of lagging behind.

If an election was held today, the Conservatives would likely trounce the Liberals and cruise to a majority government, with polling aggregator 338Canada projecting the Conservatives would win 212 seats, based on the current polling data. The Liberals would win just 74 seats.

Trudeau himself appears to be dragging the party's popularity down.

A recent poll by Nanos Research, commissioned by CTV News, found only nine per cent of Canadians say Trudeau is the most politically appealing option for party leadership.

Those abysmal numbers, coupled with the stunning decision last weekend by U.S. President Joe Biden to end his re-election bid amid mounting concerns about his own viability as a candidate, have the Ottawa bubble abuzz with speculation: Is a major cabinet shuffle on the horizon? Could Trudeau walk away? If he does, who replaces him?

If the Liberals are going to turn their electoral fortunes around, it's clear Trudeau and his government will have to hit a reset button.

One way to do that is a cabinet shuffle. As the Globe and Mail reported earlier this month, citing unnamed sources, Trudeau is working to recruit Mark Carney – the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England – to cabinet, possibly to replace Chrystia Freeland as finance minister.