My Take | Shock resignation by their deputy PM has shaken up Canadians
An ignominious exit awaits unpopular Justin Trudeau after his long-time ally walks, but let’s hope he does not drag the country down with him
Donald Trump may have just blown up the Canadian government. That’s certainly how the foreign press has been reporting the shock resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, or sacking by her boss Justin Trudeau.
A hitherto Trudeau loyalist and closest ally, she has probably hammered in the last nail in the coffin for the Liberals-led government, which has reigned for almost a decade.
The Canadian media have been largely approving of Freeland. Rather than reporting it as a stab-in-the-back for Trudeau, her long-time and greatest patron, it has portrayed her move almost as an act of self-sacrifice to warn Canadians of the impending dangers posed by Trump’s economic nationalism.
“Our country today faces a grave challenge. The incoming administration in the United States is pursuing a policy of aggressive economic nationalism,” she wrote in her resignation letter that is publicly available.
“We need to take that threat extremely seriously. That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war. That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognise the gravity of the moment.”
Freeland has picked the perfect moment to jump off Trudeau’s Titanic. The fact that she has waited so long may be seen as almost a display of loyalty.
And, by posting herself as Cassandra, the prophetess of doom, she has likely secured her political future as leader of the Liberal Party, having previously compromised herself by being so closely associated with a prime minister whose unpopularity is approaching that of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol.
