I was thinking the same thing.
In western Canada, Justin Trudeau was never very popular, and is now almost universally disliked. The article you’re discussing is basically an eastern-Canada viewpoint, a region where the Liberals have their power base. Liberals only elect a few members of parliament west of about Lake Superior and those few are in large cities, in particular Vancouver BC.
The Liberal vote in rural or small town settings in western Canada has never been much greater than 10% and the two parties usually fighting for those seats are the Conservatives and the socialist NDP. In recent years, the Green Party and the PPC (a populist libertarian party) have been at least even with the Liberals in vote totals, in western Canada ridings. There have been cases where Liberals finished in fifth place. They have always been seen as an eastern pro-Quebec pro-Toronto party in western Canada. Under JT it has just gotten a bit worse.