Well, just as we were planning to sign-off for the holidays – just as we were about to let you take a well-earned break from learning about Canadian politics and current events – our nation’s capital decided to have full-on meltdown.
Okay. That’s not fair. Ottawa didn’t decide to mimic your high school’s latest drama. Our prime minister did, at least that’s how it appears today.
If you haven’t heard, Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s long-serving Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister, resigned this morning. But that’s just the headline. After weeks of rumour-mongering, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked Freeland to accept a demotion.
A demotion?
Cabinet – the government’s board of directors – is essentially designed as a hierarchy. Sure, the prime minister chairs cabinet and has the final word. But as we’ve been explaining in your Social Studies lessons, not all cabinet roles are created equal. Overseeing fish or sport or youth, while important in the larger context, doesn’t carry the same weight as, say, finance.
In other words, if you’re the deputy prime minister and finance minister, you’re the second most powerful person in the federal government’s top decision-making body. A demotion from finance isn’t just a step down in prestige and power, it is basically a vote of non-confidence by the prime minister in your ability to make good decisions.
When the prime minister asked (asked? told? insulted?) Freeland to take on something less consequential in cabinet, he was essentially saying: ‘I don’t trust you anymore.’ Talk about a slap in the face. Talk about turning on one of the few politicians who has stood by the prime minister throughout the mini-dramas that have plagued Ottawa endlessly over the past years.
But why does this matter? Why should you care, days away from your holiday break no less?
Many reasons!
For a start, this will go down as one of the truly most bizarre government resignations in our nation’s history. A government, already (way) down in the polls and on the ropes, manoeuvres one of their most loyal and (relatively) publicly liked cabinet ministers to resign on the day that minister was set to deliver the Fall Economic Statement (more on this in a moment), against the backdrop of US President-elect Donald Trump’s 25% tariff threat that could ruin Canada’s economy, creating mass confusion across the land and setting the stage for major (federal Liberal) party drama that could force the prime minister to resign and/or even further erode the party’s fortunes in the next election.
I mean, phew, that’s a lot! A lot for an unforced error.
The prime minister has literally made his life insanely harder and, forget re-election, may have just set about burning the federal Liberal party to the ground because…um, I don’t know, he kinda doesn’t like Freeland that much anymore? Doesn’t see her as his BFF like he once did?
Much more importantly, as mentioned, Freeland was set to deliver a Fall Economic Statement today. It’s basically a budget update – a chance for the nation to understand how our finances are doing at the half way point. (Budgets are tabled, debated, and approved in the spring.) And, guess what? The finances aren’t that rosy and likely won’t be getting any rosier soon, especially if Trump gets his way. This is a problem.
And whether you care most about jobs or culture or the environment, economics – so often – has the final word. A troubled treasury isn’t good news for anyone. But worse news? You know, not having a finance minister in place to deliver said Fall Economic Statement or helping coordinate a national plan to address Trump’s tariff threats.
Now, by the time you read this, of course, Trudeau will have sworn in a new finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc. So, yes, technically, we will have a finance minister. But how much credibility will the new minister enjoy, especially when you consider the prime minister has thus far forced out (or essentially forced out) not one, but two finance ministers?! (Don’t remember the Bill Morneau affair? Maybe take a wander down the Google rabbit hole.)
Do we really believe a new minister will be the one calling the shots? Or will the minister just be another cut-out for the prime minister, easily tossed aside when a scapegoat is required?
All of this taken together doesn’t exactly scream credibility or stability, two things this country needs when the economy is slowing, the markets are watching, the Americans are threatening, and Canadians are struggling.
And what does that mean?
It could mean, for the first time, that Justin Trudeau’s leadership of the federal Liberals is actually in jeopardy.
Yes, the Liberal caucus still doesn’t have a mechanism to vote him out as leader. And, yes, the NDP still doesn’t have much money to fight an election. And, yes, we have been arguing all fall that, for these reasons, Trudeau isn’t likely to be forced out. But that was before he oddly decided to back the political bus over Freeland. Now Trudeau might have no choice but to go, or take the whole party down with him. A party, we should add, that is one of the most successful political parties in western democratic history and has governed Canada more than they haven’t since confederation.
Look, Trudeau and the Liberals were already going to lose the next federal election. You don’t have to love polls to know that when all of the polls are this stark, the writing is on the wall. But the race for second place? The race to form the official opposition and potentially rebuild for a future government? That, after today, is a serious race. The impoverished NDP could leap-frog the Liberals. And, hey, so too could the Bloc Québécois.
In fact, polls suggest the Bloc has a real chance at forming the official opposition, right when the Parti Québécois appears poised to form the next Québec government. And if that happens, a referendum on Québec separation is absolutely in the cards. That means a constitutional crisis, at the very least, and the possible re-shaping of Canada as we know it.
And, again, this is all against the backdrop of Trump tariff threats, the erosion of democracy at home and abroad, state-sponsored security threats and wars, growing division, a housing crisis, inflation and economic productivity problems, worsening climate change, and biodiversity loss… The list just goes on.
We can rarely understand history in the moment, and we can rarely comprehend how one action can spark a chain reaction of events that’s shapes our future. And today might just be another weird Ottawa day that will seem inconsequential when you return to class after the holidays. Or today might matter a lot.