The big news in Ottawa is that Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has resigned on principle and Justin Trudeau is now definitely doomed unless he’s not. Wow. But did she jump, or was she pushed?
Pushed. So the first really weird thing about this story is that plethora of news stories, including three separate pieces on the front page of a certain newspaper Monday, all using “resignation” or “quit,” (the fourth waited until page two). But we actually know she was fired.
I’ve spent decades in journalism as an opinion writing hyena who scavenges carcasses the reportorial lions did the hard work of killing. OK, it’s an unfair stereotype, to hyenas, but why spoil childhood nature-documentary images of noble felines pestered by scurvy whatever-they-ares. As to reporters, for once I jammed on the old pork-pie hat, took the fifth (from the desk drawer) and dug into… her “resignation letter” whose second paragraph says, “On Friday, you told me you no longer wanted me to serve as your Finance Minister”.
Fired! Which matters, because her calling being pushed out the window taking the high road is self-serving, even by Ottawa standards. Why abet it? OK, she was apparently offered “another position in Cabinet,” a supinely contorted one as Minister of Humiliation or something. But my rare burst of hard-boiled sleuthing unearthed “In making your decision,” a subtle paragraph four clue that it wasn’t hers but his.
Freeland then nobly declaimed that “to take that (U.S. tariff) threat extremely seriously… means keeping our fiscal powder dry today.” The today on which, if not tossed, I would have risen to defend the Fall Economic Statement pouring a $61 billion deficit into our $1-trillion-plus national debt with my administration’s trademark self-satisfied smirk.
Dry? She’s been serving powder soup for years, as finance minister from 2020 to 2024 and deputy prime minister since 2019. So cue the Churchillian rhetoric: “how we deal with the threat our country currently faces will define us for a generation, and perhaps longer.”
Rahr. We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the letterhead.
Or cue Peter Sellers’ classic “Party Political Broadcast” as she drivels “Canada will win if we are strong, smart, and united.” Vacuity piled on syntax error. Plus, wasn’t the same Chrystia Freeland saying “For a Canadian response to be strong and effective, Canada needs to be united” behind Trudeau over those tariffs, way back in late last week?
The other great puzzle here is why Trudeau might still not be finally doomed by being a completely awful prime minister in every way for a decade. Jagmeet Singh has long been furious with the Liberal plutocratic malevolence he votes for, and now in a burst of inspired unoriginality his party fumed “NDP says budget update fails people” by favouring the rich who aren’t people or something.
Like smart. Blacklock’s Reporter informs us “National debt charges this year eclipsed federal funding for medicare, new figures show. MPs expressed astonishment at data that deficit spending is 55 per cent higher than projected last April.” Really? What surprises them about it? This ministry being as lavish with public money as it is parsimonious with accurate information? Trends in debt servicing costs? Sun rising in east?
Where have any of them been on the question whether a government that spends too much should spend less? What programs would they abolish as dysfunctional money pits? Has nobody the courage of their convictions? How does politics reduce people to simpering nits who apparently wouldn’t have any convictions to be courageous about even if they had any courage if convinced?
What, finally, of the low cunning that famously supplants more elevated principles in politics? Surely, it’s well-established by now that everyone who gets close to Justin Trudeau and lets him use them to further his own sublime narcissism ends up wishing they’d never met him. Including, it seems, the electorate. Yet, the famous opportunists in Ottawa seem unable to pull away until shoved under the bus.
What spell do this former part-time drama teacher’s feeble histrionic skills cast on people including the formerly world-famous-in-Canada intellectual who just resigned out a Finance Ministry window? Why are the remaining rats scurrying up the stairs not out the doors?
Why didn’t the House Leader tell Trudeau to toss the update into the fireplace not her hands? Can Mark Carney be such a fool as to run into this burning building? And why do those who finally quit whimper about their families instead of forthrightly refusing to contribute to bad governance? Keeping their options open for ignominious disgrace?
It really is weird. Trudeau isn’t just a bad prime minister. He’s catastrophic, for his country and his party. Yet, Freeland’s lack of courage in waiting to be fired before resigning is roundly applauded.
As I said, wow.
National Post