Chrystia Freeland has never been my favourite politician. Her positions are too left-leaning, her speaking style off-putting. Her interview with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton at the 2023 Liberal Convention was cringey in the extreme.
But on Monday, Freeland revealed herself as a person of principle and great political savvy. When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attempted to throw her under the bus, like he did with so many of her former colleagues, she didn’t submit. Instead, she ran him over. And she might not have just saved her pride, but Canada as well.
In her resignation letter, Freeland was blunt. “Our country today faces a grave challenge … That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war. That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment.”
The gimmicks are Trudeau’s two-month GST holiday and $250 cheques for “working Canadians” in the face of a $60 billion deficit. The gravity is U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s 25 per cent tariff on Canadian exports to the United States once he takes office Jan. 21. That tariff will help fund his promised $4 trillion tax cut to U.S. businesses and individuals. Together, Trump’s policies will render Canadian companies uncompetitive and decimate our economy.
Freeland has seen this movie before. She was Canada’s foreign affairs minister during Trump’s first term, when he slapped tariffs on our softwood lumber, steel and aluminum. Canada responded by launching disputes at the World Trade Organization and under NAFTA, and by imposing our own tariffs on imports of U.S. steel, aluminum and other goods.
What were those goods? A crazy-quilt list of items including plywood, veneer, boats, playing cards, beer kegs, bourbon, coffee, orange juice, strawberry jam, ketchup, maple syrup, licorice, soup, toilet paper, dishwasher detergent, candles, hair spray, appliances, mattresses, sleeping bags, lawn mowers, and pens.
At the time, Freeland said that “the list has been put together with a few considerations in mind. One has been to support and defend the Canadian steel and aluminum industries that are now facing unfair (export) barriers … It is appropriate that their U.S. competitors face equivalent barriers in exporting to Canada.” But the rest of the list was strategically crafted to target industries in states that voted for Trump.
This time, Trump may not care about his own re-election, since he cannot run again. But the Republican party cares about the 2026 midterms. They do not want to lose the Senate or the House, where they lead with just two seats. So, Ottawa needs to figure out their pain points and hit them, hard, with a unified front of both federal and provincial leadership.
Trudeau has neither the judgment nor the respect required for that job. Trump has now mocked him three times as “the governor of the 51st State.” Freeland’s exit is making headlines across the U.S., “threatening his leadership.” As for tariffs, Trudeau is apparently musing about an export tax on energy, which Alberta Premier Danielle Smith rightly said would provoke “a national-unity crisis at the same time as they have a crisis with our biggest relationship with the Americans.”
The country, the premiers, and finally, the Liberal caucus, see through the PM’s charade. Several Liberal MPs told Trudeau to his face on Monday that he should go. The same day, their party lost another byelection to the Conservatives, in Cloverdale-Langley City, BC.
There is only so long this can continue. My prediction is that over the holidays Trudeau will take a walk in the snow, post his own resignation on X, and set off a Liberal leadership race. It’s not the ideal Christmas present: an election would be preferable, to give a new government a clear mandate to face the incoming American administration. But it’s still better than what we have now.
As Freeland astutely put it, voters “know when we are working for them, and they equally know when we are focused on ourselves.” Thank you, Chrystia Freeland, for standing up for yourself — and for Canada.
Postmedia Network
Tasha Kheiriddin is Postmedia’s national politics columnist.