Althia Raj: If Justin Trudeau had kept his promises, would this Liberal MP be leaving Ottawa?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lost one of his best assets last week, though he probably doesn't realize it.

The affable Toronto Beaches-East York MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith announced he's leaving federal politics to throw his hat in the ring to lead the Ontario Liberals.

Erskine-Smith, 38, built a reputation in Ottawa for doing exactly what Trudeau promised all of his MPs would be free - and encouraged - to do. Remember that famous line in the lead-up to the 2015 election? Liberal MPs would be your voice in Ottawa, not Ottawa's voice here in (your riding)."

At the time, Trudeau argued people were cynical about politics because they felt all politicians were the same. We must prove that we will do things differently," he pledged. Unfortunately, this past week demonstrated, once again, how far the Grits have strayed from that promise.

An MP with an independent streak

After his election in 2015, Erskine-Smith became known for his independent streak. In his first year in office, he voted against the government 13 times. He voted against government bills he didn't believe went far enough, such as the Grits' first medical assistance in dying legislation, and for opposition motions he agreed with, such as calling ISIS's actions in Syria a genocide.

Still, he overwhelmingly backed Liberal measures. Four years ago, for example, the National Post gave him a 96 per cent loyalty ranking.

It may seem counterintuitive that someone who voted with his party 96 per cent of the time could be considered a maverick, but such is the pull of partisan politics in Ottawa.

Perhaps because of his voting record, his openness with the media, or maybe because he's a white guy from Toronto, Erskine-Smith never made it onto a cabinet shortlist, never became a parliamentary secretary, was never appointed to chair a House of Commons committee. Thoughtful, hardworking, and trained as a lawyer, the highest promotion Erskine-Smith received was two elections ago, as vice-chair of the Commons' ethics committee.

Erskine-Smith's pitch for Ontario

Despite embodying the youthful energy, generational change and strengthened role of an MP that Trudeau once championed, Erskine-Smith is now leaving the party in Ottawa for the party in Toronto, to run on a similar pledge for Ontario.

While some of his colleagues won't be sad to say goodbye - they complain under the cloak of anonymity that Erskine-Smith is an attention-seeker who makes life more difficult for caucus - his departure raises the question of whether there is space for more than the leader's voice in Trudeau's party.

On Thursday, for example, Anthony Housefather was the only Liberal MP who voted against the government's controversial amendment to the Official Languages Act, Bill C-13. The federal legislation refers to the Quebec government's revamped Charter of the French Language (which used the notwithstanding clause to trample constitutional rights), and understandably raised alarm bells in Montreal's anglophone communities. (Another of the bill's vocal critics, former cabinet minister Marc Garneau, quit politics in March.)

Were Trudeau's promises of free votes and more independence for MPs a political ploy by a third-party leader who never expected to keep them? Or was it a genuine willingness to change the culture of Ottawa that, once in power, was never actively encouraged?

Nearly two decades ago, in his book The Big Red Machine: How the Liberal Party Dominates Canadian Politics," the late Stephen Clarkson wrote that the party's continuing hegemony has much to do with its remaining the most autocratic in the field, even while demonstrating such democratic qualities as higher participation rates, a better gender balance, and younger, better-educated activists than its rivals."

Clarkson's words were published several years before Justin Trudeau arrived on the federal political scene, but they ring eerily true.

An era Justin Trudeau once sought to replace

Watching the Liberals' national convention last week, one would be forgiven for thinking the party has returned to the era Trudeau once sought to replace.

When he ran for leader, he built a campaign offering youthful energy and a break from the past. Former Liberal insiders were cast aside, gently - and sometimes not so gently - told their presence and advice was no longer welcomed. In his 2013 speech after winning the party leadership, Trudeau spoke of building a movement, telling young people that the country and Liberal party needed their passion, their idealism and their ideas.

The movement that we have built over the past six months, it is yours. It belongs to you," he told his supporters. It's the movement through which we will change politics. It is the movement that will allow us to reform our old political institutions."

If the Liberal party establishment cares about the movement's ideas, it has done a perfect job of showing the opposite.

Even before their policy proposals (which some 4,000 grassroots Liberals spent more than a year developing and shepherding) were debated on the floor of the convention, Trudeau shot one of them down in a scrum - a resolution from the Quebec wing that the party develop a clear path to balanced budgets. What is most important to me is to create a strong and resilient economy, in which we can continue to invest and create good jobs," he said.

That evening, the party's voting delegates were asked to halve the 20 policy resolutions that had achieved enough popular support to make it to the convention. There was no rhyme or reason for it. The party's rules stipulate that the top 15 policy resolutions plus all fast-tracked resolutions agreed to by members become party policy.

Perhaps, organizers wanted to limit the number of potentially controversial resolutions that made it to the plenary. They did their best to discourage delegates from taking part in the process, setting the time for votes and debates at 7:45 a.m. on Saturday. There were so few delegates that the start of the session was delayed by about a half-hour because it didn't have the 100 participants required for quorum.

A policy convention with little debate

Unsurprisingly, there was little debate. The rules stipulated 50 delegates needed to request a vote - which is easy to achieve when the room is filled with 3,000 people, not so much when there are 150.

It's easy to shrug off a party's policy process. The resolutions are non-binding and often more far-fetched than the general electorate is ready to accept. Even after the Liberal party adopted legalizing cannabis as a policy in 2012, for example, Trudeau wasn't ready to embrace the idea. But if a party is serious about giving its members a voice and listening to concerns from different parts of the country, resolutions offer that opportunity. And for some, they really matter.

Calgarian Michelle Robinson missed her grandmother's funeral last Saturday. She felt so strongly about a Liberal policy resolution that she and her colleagues on the party's Indigenous People's Commission spent two years developing that, she told delegates, it matters more to our people, and I know my granny would want to be here."

That resolution, No. 441, received little attention. It was approved without debate. Some delegates might be surprised to learn the party's official policy now calls for the Supreme Court of Canada to expand to include three permanent seats for Indigenous judges. Perhaps, they will be thrilled. Perhaps, they won't care.

Prepared to change the voting system?

Trudeau wasn't asked to comment on Robinson's justice reform resolution. In London last Sunday, a reporter asked only about a resolution (which received overwhelming support) calling on the government to establish a citizen's assembly to try to achieve consensus around electoral reform. The prime minister responded that he's prepared to change the voting system, but only to ranked ballots (in which voters rank candidates by preference, a system that experts say would likely benefit the Liberals).

I'm always open if there is ever a consensus to move forward on moving past first past the post," he said. The fact is, there is no consensus." In the House of Commons last week, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May questioned whether Trudeau believes consensus" means getting people to agree with whatever he wants.

Trudeau came to power because he successfully revived a party that was on its deathbed. Donors were staying home. Liberals were dispirited. He promised change. He made people excited to be Liberals. By that measure, he has succeeded.

But on some of the promises that brought him to power, he has not. Instead of changing the way politics works, Trudeau may have just added to the public's cynicism.

Althia Raj is an Ottawa-based national politics columnist for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @althiaraj