Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday quit in a surprise move after disagreeing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over US president-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats.
The resignation of Freeland, 56, who also stepped down as finance minister, marked the first open dissent against Trudeau from within his Cabinet, and could threaten his hold on power.
Liberal leader Trudeau lags 20 points in polls behind his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, who has tried three times since September to topple the government and force a snap election.
Photo: Reuters
“It’s not been an easy day,” Trudeau said at a fundraiser Monday evening, but in difficult times, he added, “we must all pull together.”
Freeland’s departure came just hours before she was scheduled to provide an update on the nation’s finances.
She said in her resignation letter to Trudeau that the nation “faces a grave challenge,” pointing to Trump’s planned 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada.
“For the past number of weeks, you and I have found ourselves at odds about the best path forward for Canada,” she wrote.
Trump reacted to Freeland’s surprise departure late on Monday.
“She will not be missed!!!” Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals which are very good for the unhappy citizens of Canada,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
First elected to parliament in 2013, Freeland, a former journalist, joined Trudeau’s Cabinet two years later when the Liberals swept to power, holding key posts including trade and foreign minister, and leading free-trade negotiations with the EU and the US.
Most recently, she had been tasked with helping lead Canada’s response to the incoming Trump administration. As the first woman to hold the nation’s purse strings, she had also been tipped as a possible successor to Trudeau.
By the day’s end, Canadian Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic LeBlanc was sworn in as Canadian minister of finance, just as the government announced a C$62 billion (US$43.5 billion) deficit — about C$22 billion more than projected — due to “unexpected expenses.”
LeBlanc now takes the reins on negotiating with the Trump administration and has promised to be “focused on the challenges” ahead.
Canada’s main trading partner is the US, with 75 percent of its exports each year going to its southern neighbor.
Trudeau flew to Florida last month to dine with Trump at the latter’s Mar-a-Lago resort and try to head off the tariff threat, but nothing yet indicates the US president-elect is changing his position.
In her letter, Freeland said that Canada needed to take Trump’s tariffs threats “extremely seriously.”
Warning that it could lead to a “tariff war” with the US, she said Ottawa must keep its “fiscal powder dry.”
“That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford,” she wrote, in an apparent rebuke of a sales tax holiday that critics said was too costly.
Dalhousie University professor Lori Turnbull called Freeland’s exit “a total disaster.”
“It really shows that there is a crisis of confidence in Trudeau and makes it much harder for Trudeau to continue as prime minister,” Turnbull said.
Until Monday, the Cabinet had rallied around the prime minister as he faced pockets of dissent from backbench lawmakers, University of Ottawa professor Genevieve Tellier said, but the Freeland quitting shows his team is not as united behind him as some thought.
One by one, ministers trickled out of a Cabinet meeting past a gauntlet of reporters shouting questions. Some shouted back that they had “confidence in the prime minister,” but most, looking solemn, said nothing.
“We simply cannot go on like this,” Poilievre said. “The government is spiraling out of control ... at the very worst time.”
In another blow to Trudeau, Canadian Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Sean Fraser also resigned on Monday. He described Freeland as “professional and supportive.”
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