The old saying is that a week is a long time in politics.
Try a day.
A finance minister quits hours, yes hours, before she was going to have to stand in the House of Commons to read an economic statement she might not believe in for a prime minister she doesn’t now believe in, either.
She quits.
The finance minister-in-waiting, the person who would have been replacing her later this week had she read that statement, supposedly leaves the prime minister at the altar.
He is missing in action. A loyalist has been put in place, for who knows how long.
The NDP leader who had propped the prime minister now believes he needs to quit.
He could take it down in a confidence vote, given the support elsewhere in the Commons, but remains a bit fuzzy on what he’ll do, though.
So, it seems, do about 60 or so of the governing side MPs. That he needs to retain caucus support speaks volumes about his task ahead with the country.
For the record, the Bloc Québecois leader said the Trudeau government is over and the Conservative leader wants what he keeps calling a “carbon election.” We may get one soon, yet.
The statement in question predicts a $61.9-billion deficit this past year, a $48.3-billion deficit next, indicative of a truck careening through its guardrails and taking the government over a cliff.
Nothing like this has hit the Trudeau government. Nothing like this has struck any government in memory.
The resigned minister, Chrystia Freeland, took bullet after bullet for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, dealing with premiers, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, excessive spending, scandals of substance, quarrels in caucus and cabinet, and the depressing reality of a country that had long since lost faith, and she never blinked.
But when the prime minister told her Friday that their disagreements over the federal economic direction and her position on them were untenable – and that she would lose her job, perhaps as soon as Wednesday – she learned just how short the leash is and how short the memories are when it comes to fidelity. This is the killer instinct Trudeau has when he’s not boasting about his female-laden cabinet.
Rather than take one more bullet and stand in the Commons as the dead minister walking, Freeland grabbed a piece of letterhead, summoned her skills as a former journalist, and penned quite the poison.
In her letter she talked about “political gimmicks” of the government, about being “at odds” for some time with the boss, about how people know “when we are working for them” and not “focused on ourselves,” and how she had no “honest” or “viable” choice but to quit.
Interesting, the largest gimmick in Trudeau’s plan – $250 cheques for a lot of Canadians, which didn’t enjoy broad political support – is nowhere to be found.
The Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, took advantage of the gap to ask in the Commons: “I have a question for the finance minister. Who are you?”
It is another loyalist, Dominic LeBlanc, who was rushed into the role after a conversation with Trudeau on the afternoon of the government’s day to forget. He has three portfolios – finance, public safety, intergovernmental affairs – and the Canada-U.S. file.
Ah, yes, the Canada-U.S. file. The demotion that likely was Freeland’s last straw.
LeBlanc was, at least, at Mar-a-Lago with Trudeau and Trump two weeks ago. Trump hated Freeland, said he never wanted to be in a room with her again.
She warned in her letter Monday of the “grave” danger to the country Trump’s tariff threat posed. She wanted the country to keep its “powder dry” financially to deal with the possibly ruinous economic consequences of the recession and inflation that might ensue.
That she was offered an empty shell of a ministry without portfolio, without authority, to contend with this threat was indicative of how far she had fallen in her boss’ eyes. She might appear on the surface as a leadership candidate one day, but staying as long as she did with Trudeau might be a hill too hard for her party, much less the voters, to climb. As for Mark Carney, the former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor and the man with all of the leverage at the moment, he was wise not to take the finance job or enter the government at Trudeau’s behest. This is not like rescuing someone in a burning building; it would be entering it and staying.
Trudeau is not going anywhere now, but neither is his government. End days are upon the Liberal government, now in its 10th year.
A decade in politics, after all, is a truly long time.
Kirk LaPointe is a Glacier Media columnist with an extensive background in journalism.
