TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced the biggest
test of his political career after Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland,
long one of his most powerful and loyal ministers, announced Monday
that she was resigning from the Cabinet.
The stunning move raised questions about how much longer the prime
minister of nearly 10 years can stay on in his role as his
administration scrambles to deal with incoming U.S. President-elect
Donald Trump. Trudeau’s popularity has plummeted due to concerns about
inflation and immigration.
Opposition leader Jagmeet Singh, whose party Trudeau’s ruling Liberals
have relied upon to stay in power, called on Trudeau to resign. The
main opposition Conservatives demanded an election.
Freeland, who was also deputy prime minister, said that Trudeau had
told her Friday that he no longer wanted her to serve as finance
minister and that he offered her another role in the Cabinet. But she
said in her resignation letter to the prime minister that the only
“honest and viable path” was to leave the Cabinet.
“For the past number of weeks, you and I have found ourselves at odds
about the best path forward for Canada,” Freeland said.
Freeland and Trudeau disagreed about a two-month sales tax holiday and
$250 Canadian ($175) checks to Canadians that were recently announced.
Freeland said that Canada is dealing with U.S. President-elect
[1]Donald Trump’s threat to impose sweeping [2]25% tariffs and should
eschew “costly political gimmicks” it can “ill afford.”
“Our country is facing a grave challenge,” Freeland said in the letter.
“That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the
reserves we may need for a coming tariff war.”
The resignation comes as Freeland, who chaired a Cabinet committee on
U.S. relations, was set to deliver the fall economic statement and
likely announce border security measures designed to help Canada avoid
Trump’s tariffs. The U.S. president-elect has [3]threatened to impose a
25% tax on all products [4]entering the U.S. from Canada and [5]Mexico
unless they stem the numbers of migrants and drugs.
Trudeau has said that he plans on leading the Liberal Party into the
next election, but some party members have said they don’t want him to
run for a fourth term, and Freeland’s departure came as strong blow to
Trudeau’s administration.
“This news has hit me really hard,” Transport Minister Anita Anand
said, adding that she needed to digest the news before commenting
further.
Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said that the
government is losing control at the worst possible time.
“Justin Trudeau has lost control, but he’s hanging onto power,”
Poilievre said. “All this chaos, all this division, all this weakness
is happening as our largest neighbor and closest ally is imposing 25%
tariffs under a recently elected Trump with a strong mandate, a man who
knows how to identify weakness.”
No Canadian prime minister in more than a century has won four straight
terms.
The federal election has to be held before October. The Liberals must
rely on the support of at least one other major party in Parliament,
because they don’t hold an outright majority themselves. If the
opposition New Democratic Party, or NDP, pulls support, an election can
be held at any time.
“I’m calling on Justin Trudeau to resign. He has to go,” NDP leader
Jagmeet Singh said.
Trudeau’s Liberal party needs the support of the NDP party to stay in
power. Singh didn’t say if he would note no confidence in the
government but said all options are on the table.
“Mr. Trudeau’s government is over,” Opposition Bloc Quebecois leader
Yves-François Blanchet said. “He must acknowledge that and act
accordingly. The departure of his most important ally, his finance
minister, is the end of this government.”
Trudeau channeled the star power of his father in 2015, when he
reasserted the country’s liberal identity after almost a decade of
Conservative Party rule. But the son of late Prime Minister Pierre
Trudeau is now in big trouble. Canadians have been frustrated by the
rising cost of living and other issues like immigration increases
following the country’s emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As a country we have to project strength,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford
said. “It’s chaos right now up in Ottawa.”
Trudeau’s legacy includes opening the doors wide to immigration. He
also legalized cannabis and brought in a carbon tax intended to fight
climate change.
Freeland said in the resignation letter that Canadians “know when we
are working for them, and they equally know when we are focused on
ourselves. Inevitably, our time in government will come to an end.”
Freeland’s resignation comes as Trudeau has been trying to recruit
[6]Mark Carney to join his government. Carney is the former head of the
Bank of England and Bank of Canada.
He was so well regarded after helping Canada dodge the worst of the
global economic crisis that the U.K. named him the first foreigner to
serve as governor of the Bank of England since it was founded in 1694.
Carney has long been interested in entering politics and becoming the
leader of the Liberal Party. It wasn’t immediately clear if Carney has
agreed to join Trudeau’s Cabinet.
“This is quite a bombshell,” said Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at
the University of Toronto. “Freeland was not only finance minister but
also deputy prime minister and, until a couple of years ago, was seen
as Trudeau’s heir as Liberal leader and prime minister.”
Wiseman said that leaks from the prime minister’s office suggest that
she was a poor communicator and made Freeland’s status questionable.
“There was talk about her becoming foreign minister again and that
would have been a good fit for her, but the stab in the back from the
prime minister’s office cast the die,” Wiseman said.
Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in
Montreal, also called it a political earthquake and not just because
Freeland was the second most powerful official in government.
“Also because of how she resigned: by publishing a letter on social
media that clearly criticizes the prime minister only hours before she
was supposed to present the government’s fall economic statement,”
Béland said.
“This is clearly a minority government on life support but, until now,
the (opposition) NDP has rejected calls to pull the plug on it. It’s
hard to know whether this resignation will force the NDP to rethink its
strategy.”
References
1.
https://apnews.com/article/canada-trudeau-us-trump-tariffs-f23417b8f6671adf6b4c908be630615f
2.
https://apnews.com/article/canada-us-trump-tariffs-c5d740bed83d71a230194ca28be02100
3.
https://apnews.com/article/with Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club
4.
https://apnews.com/article/tariffs-trump-trade-policy-economy-0fb9740a4b42c734c75b64ba09c901d5
5.
https://apnews.com/article/mexico-tariffs-trump-retaliate-sheinbaum-fac0b0c6ee8c425a928418de7332b74a
6.
https://www.apnews.com/4e5a33d570774ef683e8010b4066fce8/Bank-of-England's-Carney-extends-term-at-helm-to-Jan-2020
