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Three sources said Sunday that Justin Trudeau is expected to announce as early as Monday that he is stepping down as leader of the Liberal Party, as the prime minister faces a faction revolt and dismal opinion polls that show his party is likely to be ousted from power by Pierre Poilievre’s conservatives.

The sources stressed that they did not know exactly when Mr. Trudeau would announce his plans to quit, but said they expected it to happen before a key national caucus meeting on Wednesday. The Globe and Mail is not naming the sources because they were not authorized to discuss internal party matters.

One of the sources who recently spoke to the prime minister said Mr. Trudeau is aware that he needs to make a statement before meeting with the Liberal caucus so that it doesn’t look like he’s being targeted by his own MPs been forced into office.

The three sources said they were unsure what the Liberal Party’s national executive board planned to do to replace Mr. Trudeau as leader. They said it remained unclear whether he would leave immediately or remain as prime minister until a new leader was elected. The Liberal Party’s national board, which decides leadership issues, plans to meet this week, likely after the caucus meeting.

On Friday, The Globe reported that Mr. Trudeau’s advisers are considering how he can remain prime minister while a new Liberal leader is elected. A fourth source said Sunday they expected Mr. Trudeau to remain in office until a new leader is elected. The Globe did not identify a source who was not authorized to discuss the private deliberations.

However, several MPs have expressed their preference for an interim leader, including Alberta Liberal George Chahal. He wrote a letter to his parliamentary group colleagues last week with this request.

The party has two options: appoint an interim leader on the recommendation of the national caucus or hold an abbreviated leadership contest. A leadership contest would require the prime minister to ask Governor General Mary Simon to prorogue Parliament, which constitutional experts say is not guaranteed.

One of the sources said the prime minister had spoken to Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc about whether he would be willing to step in as interim leader and prime minister. However, the source said that would not be practical if Mr LeBlanc planned to run for the leadership, as expected.

Another source said it made sense for Mr. Trudeau to remain prime minister until a leader was elected so he could deal with the new administration of Donald Trump and his threat of 25 percent tariffs.

A separate Liberal Party source said a leadership race would last at least three months, despite the party’s constitution calling for a minimum of four months. Plus, the source said, a race for the lead needs enough time to be a real competition. The Globe did not identify the source, who was not authorized to discuss partisan matters.

The national executive is aware that shorter deadlines could lead to poor decisions, the source said. The individual downplayed the interim leader scenario, noting that no modern sitting prime minister has ever relinquished leadership in this manner.

To make matters worse, a vote on supplies is scheduled for March 28 to allow the government to get to work. The prime minister could make a motion to adjourn before that date, the Liberal Party source said.

Mr. Trudeau has remained largely silent since the surprise resignation of Chrystia Freeland as finance minister and deputy prime minister on Dec. 16, which led to renewed calls from Liberal MPs for his resignation. She quit on the day she was due to deliver her economic and fiscal update, citing concerns over what she called spending gimmicks, such as the GST holiday and $250 rebates, as well as a lack of seriousness in dealing with them possible Trump tariffs.

The Atlantic, Ontario and Quebec caucuses have signaled that most of their members no longer support Mr. Trudeau remaining at the top. Of the 153 seats held by the Liberals in the House of Commons, 131 are in these three regions.

The Prime Minister then told MPs that he would think about his future, and his inner circle made it clear just before the holidays that he would not announce any decisions during this period.

But over the past two weeks, Mr. Trudeau’s closest advisers have consulted with senior Liberals about how it might work if Mr. Trudeau stayed on as leader and prime minister until the end of a leadership race to succeed him.

While there is still no clear answer from Mr. Trudeau, nor concrete rules for a leadership contest, there is already talk about who might replace him and how they would structure their own campaigns.

Ahead of the Christmas break, The Globe reported that one of the questions facing the prime minister was whether he still had the team behind him to remain as leader.

The fourth source who has been in touch with Mr. Trudeau told The Globe Sunday that the prime minister’s resignation was not because he did not believe he was the right person to lead the party, but rather , because he came to the conclusion that this was the case. The group is no longer behind him.

Following Ms Freeland’s resignation, it was not immediately clear how MPs would react, with many in the Liberal backbench unhappy with her performance as finance minister and calling for her replacement. However, the source said that in recent weeks reports of regional caucus meetings and one-on-one meetings between MPs and the prime minister’s team had made it more clear that he no longer had the team in place.

The source said they feel Mr. Trudeau knows there is nowhere left for him to stay.

Liberal candidates who are possible leadership contenders: Ms. Freeland, Mr. LeBlanc, former housing minister Sean Fraser, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne, Transportation Minister Anita Anand, former central banker Mark Carney and former B.C. premier Christy Clark .

Polls last year showed the Conservatives with a double-digit lead over the governing Liberals. An Angus Reid poll released Friday suggests the Liberals under Trudeau only have the support of 13 per cent of voters, but those numbers change when a new leader is in power.

If Ms. Freeland were to take power, 21 percent of voters would vote for the Liberals, the highest number among leadership candidates tested.

Angus Reid conducted an online survey of 2,406 Canadian adults who are members of the Angus Reid Forum from December 27 to Tuesday. Online surveys cannot be considered truly random. But for comparison purposes, a sample of this size would have a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points 19 times out of 20.