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.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS