MONTREAL—Jody Wilson-Raybould is not ready to say whether she still trusts the prime minister, but she is nevertheless adamant she will be running under the Liberal banner next fall.

Despite the grim picture of the behind-the-scenes government operations she painted and in spite of the fact that she holds Justin Trudeau responsible for the political pressure she says she endured as attorney general, she is apparently ready to commend him to voters for another four years.

For notwithstanding Conservative calls for the prime minister’s resignation, he is — as she must surely know — more likely to still be leading his party in the upcoming election than the alternative.

The government has all kinds of troubles to manage these days but a covert play for Trudeau’s job on the part of one of his more ambitious ministers is so far not one of its problems.

Until last month, the post-Trudeau leadership of the party was not a live issue in Canadian politics. Chances are there are more would-be successors to Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer, who have been tooling up just in case his post opens up, than there are battle-ready aspirants to the Liberal throne.

As for Wilson-Raybould herself, the odds that she could use her now sky-high profile to vault to the top Liberal position stand at about nil.

Political parties operate like families and many Liberals felt betrayed as they watched the ex-attorney general tear strips off the prime minister’s political hide over the SNC-Lavalin affair last Wednesday. She has become a polarizing figure within her own party.

The Liberals recently spent a decade in opposition.

It included the near-death experience of being relegated to third place for the first time in Canadian history.

By the time Trudeau became leader, more than a few feared their party was a spent force. For an organization that to this day still sees itself as Canada’s natural governing party it was an existential crisis that is not about to be forgotten.

Until the SNC-Lavalin story broke, the next election was the Liberals to lose. That — at least for now — is no longer the case.

Should Trudeau become the first prime minister to fail to turn a first majority government into a second term in office next October, many Liberals will hold Wilson-Raybould responsible for having sunk the party’s re-election boat.

Memories of the specifics of the SNC-Lavalin issue will fade more quickly than that of the damage she wreaked on her own government.

And then there is the inconvenient fact that she does not speak French in a party that has long insisted on bilingualism as a non-negotiable requirement of leadership.

Given all that what does a future in politics hold for Wilson-Raybould?

Her re-election to the House of Commons may be the least of her worries — regardless of whether she does stay true or is allowed to stay true to her decision to run as a Liberal in the fall.

It is not yet a done deal that she will be allowed to remain in the government caucus. On Monday, Trudeau said he was still reflecting on whether she should keep her place on his government’s benches.

Given that the last thing the prime minister probably needs at this difficult juncture is to turn a former Indigenous star minister who has achieved public hero status in the eye of many voters into a martyr, chances are she will remain on the Liberal slate for as long as she feels like it.

But if the past is any indication, by running for the federal Liberals she may be signing up for life in the slow lane for a pretty long time — either in opposition if they are defeated or on the backbench if they are re-elected.

Just ask Conservative MP Michael Chong. He resigned from cabinet early on in Stephen Harper’s first government over the Quebec nation resolution.

Chong felt — rightly — that as the minister in charge of intergovernmental affairs he should have been in on the discussion of the initiative. More importantly, he could not support the motion.

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To this day 13 years later Chong remains a member of the CPC caucus. But he was never invited back into cabinet.

Similarly, the position of influence the ex-attorney general relinquished when she resigned from the cabinet will not be returned to her for at least as long as Trudeau is leader.

By all indications, Wilson-Raybould does not plan to be done with politics. She has plenty of personal electoral capital to spend on staying in the game. But she may have to look to the provincial scene in her home-province of British Columbia where she is said to be close to NDP Premier John Horgan rather than to the national stage for a bright future.

Chantal Hébert is a columnist based in Ottawa covering politics. Follow her on Twitter: @ChantalHbert

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