Trudeau names new Liberal campaign director: Who is Andrew Bevan?

The Liberal Party of Canada has been without a national campaign director for more than a month, but that changed Sunday when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau named veteran Liberal Andrew Bevan to the role. Bevan will serve through the next federal election.

The position became empty last month when longtime Trudeau adviser Jeremy Broadhurst resigned, dealing a blow to the party.

Last year, Bevan was appointed chief of staff to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and senior adviser to the prime minister. He was involved in the development and implementation of the most recent federal budget, the Liberal Party said in a news release.

Bevan came to the role from provincial politics, having previously served as chief of staff and principal secretary to former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne.

He also has experience working on election campaigns, having volunteered for the late former Liberal MP John Godfrey in 1993 and as communications director for Stephane Dion's bid for Liberal leader in 2006. He also served as Dion's chief of staff and main secretary in the opposition from 2007 to 2008.

Trudeau also appointed Marjorie Michel to the role of deputy campaign director. Michel's background is in Quebec politics, where he held key roles in the Liberal Party campaigns in 2019 and 2021.

“Andrew Bevan has been a leader in advancing progressive priorities for more than 30 years,” Trudeau said in a statement.

Bevan said his work would focus on connecting Canadians to the Liberal Party and highlighting the government's work.

“Building on the Liberal Party's work to connect with more Canadians than ever before, we will build a winning campaign that re-elects Justin Trudeau and even more Liberal MPs so we can keep Canada moving forward,” he said in a statement.

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The appointments of Bevan and Michel come at a difficult time for the Liberal Party. Global News learned Saturday that some members of the Liberal caucus were mounting efforts to force Trudeau to resign. Trudeau maintained his grip on the Liberal Party even as his government's decline in the polls turned into a freefall and the Liberals lost two strongholds in the Toronto and Montreal by-elections.

The noise got louder at the end of June, after the loss of Toronto-St. Paul's Seat to the Conservatives, but an attempt to expel him did not gain the support of more than one or two deputies.

Questions surrounding Trudeau's leadership calmed somewhat over the summer, but returned with a vengeance in September after the NDP withdrew from the supply and trust agreementnational campaign director Jeremy Broadhurst withdrew and the party lost a critical second by-election in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun from Montreal riding to the Bloc Québécois.

In a statement about his decision to resign, Broadhurst cited the toll that two decades and five national campaigns had taken on him and his family.

He said the upcoming federal election could be the most critical federal campaign of his lifetime, and that the party deserves a campaign director who can bring more energy and devotion to the job.

Broadhurst was a Liberal staffer in some capacity for nearly 25 years, serving at various times as chief of staff or adviser to various leaders and cabinet ministers.

Broadhurst was national director of the Liberal Party of Canada from 2013 to 2015 and helped turn the Liberal data machine into an operation that helped them win the 2015 election.

He worked in the Prime Minister's Office after the 2015 victory and, in 2019, was elevated to campaign director.

–with files from Canadian Press