Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland resigns from cabinet

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and deputy 'at odds about the best path forward for Canada'

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.

The fall economic statement was set to be tabled in the House of Commons at 4 p.m. on Monday. Following news of Freeland’s resignation, officials from the department of finance told journalists that the usual lock-up period, during which journalists are given a chance to review the document under embargo, would be delayed. The lock-up eventually commenced at 2 p.m., though it was not immediately clear when the update would be delivered.

• Email: jgowling@postmedia.com

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