Freeland resignation mortal blow for PM

Opinion

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This article was published 17/12/2024 (275 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“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.”

— Chrystia Freeland

With those words, now-former deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland dealt a mortal blow to her Liberal government, and to Justin Trudeau as its leader.

Freeland resigned yesterday morning from the Trudeau government cabinet, just hours before she was to table the government’s fall economic statement in the House of Commons. In her resignation letter to the PM — which she posted online, in both official languages — she wrote that “For the past number of weeks, you and I have found ourselves at odds about the best path forward for Canada.”

She said that Trudeau had offered her another role in cabinet this past Friday, but that the only “honest and viable path” for her was to leave cabinet. The plan to move her from the finance portfolio, and perhaps from her role as deputy PM, to some other cabinet position appears to confirm media reports that the PM has been attempting to convince former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney to join the cabinet in an economic portfolio.

It appears that the Liberal script called for Freeland to deliver the fall economic statement yesterday, for the government to allow Parliament to shut down for its scheduled Christmas break later today, and then announce a cabinet shuffle tomorrow. That shuffle likely would have included Carney being appointed as finance minister, with Freeland moving to some lesser responsibility.

That may have been Trudeau’s plan, but it clearly wasn’t Freeland’s. By moving her out of finance just 48 hours after tabling the fall economic statement, the public would have concluded that she was to blame for the massive deficit that the federal government is currently running, and had been fired as a result.

Putting all of that responsibility on her shoulders would have dealt a fatal blow to her credibility, to her reputation for fiscal competency and to her hopes of being the next Liberal leader.

Unsurprisingly, Freeland was unwilling to be Trudeau’s “fall guy,” and that likely explains some of the language in her resignation letter. In the above quote, she all but accused Trudeau of putting the political interests of his government ahead of the interests of Canadians, and warned that doing so will eventually cause the government’s defeat.

As regards the tariffs threatened by U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, she wrote that “We need to take that threat extremely seriously. That means keeping our fiscal powder dry, so that we have reserves we may need for the coming tariff war. That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment.”

Those three sentences are a political hand grenade, tossed by Freeland toward Trudeau. She is accusing him of not taking Trump’s threats seriously, of not ensuring that the government is fully prepared for the looming trade war and, even worse, of wasting scarce fiscal reserves on “political gimmicks” — no doubt an allusion to the widely criticized temporary GST cut that began this past weekend.

Later in her letter, she says “It is this conviction which has driven my strenuous efforts this fall to manage our spending in ways that will give us the flexibility we will need to meet the serious challenges presented by the United States.”

Whether you call it “inoculation,” “insulation” or “deflection,” it isn’t hard to see Freeland’s motivation. After a decade of doing heavy lifting for Trudeau on a number of important files, she is making sure that she isn’t blamed for the fiscal mess that is currently unfolding in Ottawa, nor for mishandling the government’s response to Trump’s tactics.

She’s telling Canadians that she has worked hard to prepare the nation, both politically and economically, to withstand the actions of the incoming U.S. administration, but that she has been “at odds” with Trudeau as to “the best path forward for Canada.” She is saying that it’s the PM, not her, who is to blame if things go wrong.

It is unclear if Canadians will buy Freeland’s perspective as being accurate, or whether they will simply see it as the same sort of self-serving blame-shifting that we often see from politicians serving in governments that are headed toward electoral defeat.

One thing is crystal clear, however: With Trudeau having lost the confidence of his most-trusted and effective lieutenant, it’s no surprise that most Canadians feel the same way. To paraphrase Freeland, the Liberals’ time in government will inevitably come to an end and, because of her resignation, perhaps sooner than expected.