Where does Justin Trudeau go without Chrystia Freeland?
No minister is truly irreplaceable — but Freeland came closer than most
Back in 2018 — after her star turn as the minister who took on Donald Trump — Chrystia Freeland was, in Justin Trudeau's words, "exactly the right person to do what she's doing."
"Quite frankly, there probably isn't a day that goes by where I don't thank my lucky stars for having been able to convince her to leave her great job in New York to run in an uncertain byelection where I couldn't even guarantee she was going to win the nomination, and then come to sit with the third party in the House," Trudeau told me back then.
"Because she was the kind of person I knew Canada needed serving within Parliament and hopefully serving within government."
An acclaimed journalist and author, Freeland was the first star candidate recruited to the Liberal Party by Trudeau and his team in 2013. She became an early proof point for his leadership. And her writing on economic inequality lined up perfectly with the "middle class" message that would be central to the Trudeau Liberals in 2015.
When the first crisis of Trudeau's time in office arrived in November 2016 — the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States — she was elevated to foreign affairs minister and put front and centre in the response.
After a weakened prime minister limped out of the 2019 election, Freeland was elevated to deputy prime minister — the first cabinet minister to hold that title in more than a decade — and was asked to lead the government's outreach to the provinces, including the western provinces that had turned decidedly against Trudeau.
When the prime minister and his first finance minister, Bill Morneau, began to see things differently in 2020, Freeland was put in charge of fiscal policy and tasked with helping guide the federal government out of a once-in-a-century pandemic; her signature accomplishment became a new child care program. And when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Freeland, the daughter of a Ukrainian mother, fronted one of the Trudeau government's most significant foreign policy efforts on behalf of its ally.
No cabinet minister is ever truly irreplaceable and any number of individuals who have served alongside Trudeau would say that they came to office with impressive resumes and did important things while they were there. But aside from Trudeau himself, no minister has been more central to this government than Freeland.
As a result, her resignation on Monday morning dealt a shattering blow to Trudeau's government. It will be very hard for the prime minister to put the pieces back together again.
Another minister parts on bad terms
On its own, Freeland's resignation from cabinet — at any time, for whatever reason — would have been a significant loss. But her stunning exit came just hours before she was to deliver the fall economic statement (the second-most important day of the year for a finance minister).
It was conveyed via a stinging public letter to the prime minister. And it landed just a month before the start of another Trump presidency, one already threatening to be even more challenging than the first.
Add all of that up and it suggests the prime minister catastrophically mishandled the minister for whom he once thanked his lucky stars.
It is particularly unfortunate for Trudeau that Freeland is not the first minister to leave on bad terms. Going back to Jody Wilson-Raybould's calamitous exit in 2019, multiple ministers have now departed cabinet and have subsequently aired their grievances with his management — including Freeland's immediate predecessor as finance minister.
Some of that might be put down to Liberal Party culture, or the sorts of accomplished individuals Trudeau recruited and appointed. These are not lifelong partisans or ideologues, the sorts of politicians who might be inclined to swallow their complaints for the sake of the party or the cause.
But cabinet resignations have become a glaring trend for this government over the last nine years. And these interpersonal breakdowns suggest a strange dichotomy with a prime minister who is otherwise able and willing to deal with the public.
Whatever Freeland's shortcomings as a political communicator — and she did struggle to win the rhetorical fight over economic and fiscal issues — she came to politics as a writer. And that talent was on display in her parting missive.
Like a political journalist recounting the latest intrigue, she elegantly recounted her meeting with the prime minister and her reasons for stepping aside. She framed the moment in terms of the "grave challenge" facing the country. She called on the government to keep its "fiscal powder dry" and eschew "costly political gimmicks" — apparently a reference to the government's pledge to send $250 cheques to 18 million people next spring.
Most of all, she suggested the government had a choice to make — about how it responds to Trump and perhaps also how it handles its last months in office.
"Inevitably, our time in government will come to an end," she wrote. "But how we deal with the threat our country currently faces will define us for a generation, and perhaps longer. Canada will win if we are strong, smart and united."
If Freeland was interested in running for leader of the Liberal Party, this would be a heck of a way to launch her campaign. But of course, there is no such leadership race to run in. Not yet.
Things keep getting worse for Trudeau
It was possible to believe Trudeau's time as leader of the Liberal Party was coming to an end when the party lost a formerly safe seat in a Toronto byelection in June. But Trudeau persisted. He persisted after the Liberals lost a formerly safe seat in a Montreal byelection in September. And he persisted after a couple dozen Liberal MPs called for his resignation in October.
There is something to be said for persistence. But matters have only continued to get worse for Trudeau.
This is not the first time a finance minister and prime minister have fallen out. A week ago, Conservative MP Michael Chong was taunting Freeland with the name of John Turner, who left Pierre Trudeau's cabinet in 1975. But in form, substance and timing, there may be no precedent for Freeland's remarkable departure on Monday — or no precedents that bode well for Trudeau.
An unpopular prime minister, already facing an uphill struggle to win re-election, has been abandoned by his most important minister — on the eve of a major fiscal policy statement, with a singularly disruptive U.S. president bearing down on the country.
Freeland is surely correct that Canada should aim to be strong, smart and united right now. It's not obvious that any of those adjectives describe the Trudeau government.
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