In a bombshell move that rocked political Ottawa and the country, finance minister and former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland resigned from cabinet on Monday morning, just hours before she was set to deliver the federal government’s fall economic statement. Freeland posted her resignation letter on social media, which included a scathing criticism of the direction of the country’s finances.

Freeland (University-Rosedale, Ont.) said she was stepping down because it was the “only honest and viable path” for her after she said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) asked her to step down as finance minister on Friday, Dec. 13, and offered her another cabinet post.

In the letter addressed to Trudeau and posted on X, she said she plans to stay on as a Liberal MP and run again in the next election.

“To be effective, a minister must speak on behalf of the prime minister and with his full confidence. In making your decision, you made clear that I no longer credibly enjoy that confidence and possess the authority that comes with it,” Freeland wrote. “For the past number of weeks, you and I have found ourselves at odds about the best path forward to Canada. Our country today faces a grave challenge. The incoming administration in the United States is pursuing a policy of aggressive economic nationalism, including a threat of 25 per cent tariffs.”

With leaks last week reporting of friction between Trudeau and Freeland, she appeared to address the rumours by describing the pair as “at odds about the best path forward for Canada.”

See my letter to the Prime Minister below // Veuillez trouver ma lettre au Premier ministre ci-dessous pic.twitter.com/NMMMcXUh7A

— Chrystia Freeland (@cafreeland) December 16, 2024

She said Canada news to take the 25 per cent tariff threat from the incoming U.S. President Donald Trump “very seriously” by “keeping our fiscal powder dry today” so Canada has the necessary reserves to be prepared for “a coming tariff war.”

“This means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment,” she said in an apparent reference to the reportedly PMO-driven decision to offer a two-month GST holiday and issue $250 to 18.7-million Canadians in an effort to address cost-of-living concerns.

“They know when we are working for them, and equally know when we are focused on ourselves.”

Kevin Page, the former parliamentary budget officer, described Freeland’s resignation on the same day as the fall economic statement as a “very significant historical moment” in an interview with CBCNN.

“I think the uncertainty of a deputy prime minister, a finance minister resigning on a day of the release of a financial document, which is an issue of confidence, very significant historical moment,” said Page.

Tim Powers, a veteran Conservative pundit, said he has never seen anything like this in federal politics and described it as “absolutely stunning,” adding that the prime minister has some serious options to consider on his leadership.

“We say in sports, when a coach loses the room, he loses the team. The prime minister is clearly losing the room and is losing his team as we witnessed today. These are the people he wanted to have take him forward whenever the next election comes. This, you can’t understate this as Chrystia Freeland’s been a high-profile centrepiece of that team,” said Powers.

“Second point, I’d make is we all give Chrystia Freeland a hard time for not always [having] political smarts. Well, today she’s demonstrated that she’s got some political smarts because she has certainly upstaged the federal economic statement, upstaged the prime minister [for] arguably a couple of good weeks he had on the Trump front and demonstrated she knows how to play the game of politics with elbows and force when necessary. Clearly the PMO had no sense that she may make that move. They underestimated her. They must be spinning right now because I don’t know how you turn it into something positive in the next few days. You basically want to get to the holiday period looking like you’re still standing. Right now, they look like they’re about centimetre above the ground before they hit it,” said Powers.

NDP MP Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, Ont.) wrote on the social media platform Bluesky that it’s clear Freeland quit cabinet because of those concerns, noting people like his mother don’t want to be “bought off” with a $250 cheque. 

“Parliament is like watching kids fighting in a sand box while everyone tries to warn them that the tsunami is coming,” wrote Angus, before turning the focus on Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, Ont.). “Poilievre would sell us out in a second and the PM is MIA.”

Liberals on the Hill offered muted reactions to the bombshell revelation, which came close on the heels of Sean Fraser’s (Central Nova, N.S.) announcement that he was resigning from cabinet as housing minister. 

Treasury Board President and Minister of Transport Anita Anand (Oakville, Ont.) called Freeland a “good friend” who she worked with closely in her files.

“This news has hit me really hard and I’ll reserve further comment until I have time to process it,” Anand told reporters.

Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu (Thunder Bay—Superior North, Ont.) said she wished Freeland luck, saying the choice to step down represented “difficult and deeply personal decisions.”

Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne (Saint-Maurice-Champlain, Que.) addressed Fraser’s exit saying he served with “distinction,” and when asked about confidence in Trudeau’s leadership, Champagne said that after a decade some Liberal MPs are reflecting that “they’ve worked a lot for their constituents.”  

Former Liberal cabinet ministers Catherine McKenna and Jody Wilson-Raybould offered some commentary on the dynamics at play.

“When the general is losing his most loyal soldiers on the eve of a (tariff) war, the country desperately needs a new general,” wrote Wilson-Raybould on X.

McKenna wrote on Bluesky that it’s important to speak up, even if partisans dislike the approach, saying “a political party isn’t a cult.” 

“If people who care greatly about the party don’t speak up when things are really are off the rails, then we’re doing a disservice to the country & to ourselves.

Stephen Maher, author of The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau, and a veteran freelance journalist, said the election of Trump is the biggest challenge to Canada since the Second World War. “Canada’s finance minister has now denounced the government’s response as feckless and irresponsible. Hard to see Trudeau hanging on, leading his party into an election.”

Spark Advocacy’s Bruce Anderson, who is also a veteran pundit, said the prime minister should consider resigning. “Justin Trudeau is facing the most serious risk to his continued leadership yet. Hard to know how this will turn to, but he’s had trouble reading the room for a long time now. His party lacks confidence in him,” Anderson posted on Dec. 16 on Twitter/X.

James Moore, a former Harper-era cabinet minister and a regular pundit, said: “The delusion of a prime minister to think he can pre-fire a long loyal finance minister, then ask her to deliver the fall economic statement, and then humiliate her a day later by bringing in an unelected outsider to fix her mistakes is the absolute apex of incompetence.”

Ministers were quiet on the bombshell news after leaving the morning cabinet meeting. Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal (Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, Man.) said he was sorry to see Freeland go. Vandal was one of four ministers who had previously said they were not planning to run in the next election: Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau (Compton-Stanstead, Que.), Minister for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario Filomena Tassi (Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas, Ont.), and Sport Minister Carla Qualtrough (Delta, B.C.).

Trudeau also has to replace two positions for ministers who have already left cabinet: the transport file made vacant when Liberal-turned-Independent MP Pablo Rodriguez (Honoré-Mercier, Que.) left to announce his Quebec Liberal leadership bid, and employment following Liberal MP Randy Boissenault’s (Edmonton Centre, Alta.) exit after weeks of controversy related to his former business partner. 

In an afternoon press conference Poilievre said Canadians are seeing the government “spiralling out of control right before our eyes and at the very worst time.”

Poilievre, who read from Freeland’s resignation letter to punctuate his points, said Trudeau’s housing minister Fraser is resigning “in the middle of a housing crisis,” and “his finance minister is resigning in the middle of an economic crisis.”

“Justin Trudeau has lost control and yet he clings to power,” said Poilievre, who said the “chaos,” “weakness,” and “division” do Canada no good as it faces the tariff threat from Trump.

As questions loom over Trudeau’s next steps with a cabinet shuffle and his leadership, Poilievre said it’s clear Canadians deserve an election.

The Conservative leader said the best path forward would be tabling the fall economic update in the House of Commons as planned, and MPs should be able to vote on it as a matter of confidence. 

Canada needs an election before, or within weeks of, Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration so the nation has “a strong prime minister with the brains and backbone” to handle the bilateral relationship.

The Hill Times

 

See all stories BY SAMANTHA WRIGHT ALLEN