FINANCE MINISTER CHRYSTIA FREELAND RESIGNS FROM CABINET
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Ottawa was gripped by political drama on Monday after Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland stunningly resigned from cabinet, hours before she was scheduled to table the Trudeau government’s Fall Economic Statement.
“On Friday, you told me you no longer want me to serve as your Finance Minister and offered me another position in cabinet,” Freeland wrote in a letter addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which she shared on the social media site X. “Upon reflection, I have concluded that the only honest and viable path is for me to resign from cabinet.”
Freeland added that she and the Prime Minister have, over recent weeks, “been at odds about the best path forward for Canada.”
Her resignation came following reports by the Globe and Mail that the Prime Minister has been courting former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney to replace her as finance minister.
Monday’s fall statement was widely expected to show the government has failed to adhere to one of the fiscal guardrails Freeland had previously set: keeping the deficit under $40.1 billion for the 2023-2024 fiscal year.
In her letter, she highlighted the threat posed by a potential 25-per-cent tariff from the incoming Trump administration.
“We need to take that threat extremely seriously,” she wrote. “That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war.”
That, she wrote, would require “eschewing costly political gimmicks.” The government had recently announced a GST holiday and said it would send $250 cheques to millions of Canadians in the new year, a pledge the Liberals had to back away from due to a lack of support for the rebates in the House of Commons.
Freeland’s resignation threw plans to deliver the fall statement into disarray, but it was eventually tabled in the House of Commons by government house leader Karina Gould.
Later, in a ceremony at Rideau Hall, public safety minister Dominic Leblanc was sworn in as the government’s new finance minister.
In a press conference with reporters following the ceremony, Leblanc confirmed he will also become chair of the cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations, a position also previously held by Freeland to deal with the incoming Trump administration. He will also stay on in his roles as public safety and intergovernmental affairs minister.
Leblanc was also asked what his priorities will be as finance minister where he said Canadians expect “the expenditure of public money to be focused on what achieves results for them.”
“I think the number one priority for the government has to remain the cost-of-living challenges that Canadian families are facing,” Leblanc said. “They want the government to remain focused on those issues, that will be a focus for me as the minister of finance, they also expect the government to manage public finances and taxpayers’ money in an effective way.”
Following Freeland’s resignation, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre called on the government to call an election.
“I think right now, Canadians’ Christmas holidays are being interrupted by the NDP-Liberal hell they’re living under,” he said. “And I think the best Christmas present we could give Canadians is to let them choose a new common-sense Conservative government that will bring home Canada’s promise.”
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said Trudeau should resign, but stopped short of removing his confidence in the federal government.
“All options are on the table,” said Singh. “There are no votes in front of us, but we will take each vote, and right now literally everything is on the table.”
Story by: Financial Post
