Trudeau faces frustrated MPs after Chrystia Freeland’s shock resignation

The latest:

• At caucus meeting, some Liberal MPs tell PM he has to step down after Chrystia Freeland’s shock resignation.
• Trudeau says he will take time to reflect on caucus concerns, sources say.
• At least seven Liberal MPs, including a former cabinet minister, publicly say Trudeau must resign.
• Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc has been sworn in as Canada’s new finance minister.
• Despite the drama, fall economic statement was tabled — showing a big deficit of more than $60B.
• Freeland says PM told her Friday he no longer wanted her to serve as finance minister.
• Rather than accept a job change, Freeland resigned Monday.
• In letter to Trudeau announcing her resignation, Freeland denounced Trudeau’s “costly political gimmicks.”
• Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says Trudeau must call an election right away.
• NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says Trudeau must resign.
• NDP House leader Peter Julian tells CBC News the party will vote non-confidence in the Liberal government if Trudeau stays on into the new year.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced frustrated MPs at a hastily arranged caucus meeting late Monday following Chrystia Freeland’s shocking decision to resign from cabinet just before she was to deliver the government’s much-anticipated fall economic statement.

About 15 MPs took to the microphone to address Trudeau at that meeting, according to one Liberal MP who was in the room.

Most of the speakers said he has to step down after mismanaging his once-crucial relationship with Freeland, the outgoing deputy prime minister, the MP said.

Liberal sources told CBC News that Trudeau said he heard their concerns and would take time over the next few days to reflect on his future.

Trudeau said much the same thing after nearly two dozen MPs called on him to leave earlier this fall. He ended up rejecting those calls to leave the next day.

But this time, sources said, Trudeau hasn’t decided what to do.

“I can say we’re not united. There’s still a number of our members who think we need a change in leadership and I’m one of them,” Liberal Ontario MP Chad Collins told reporters after the caucus meeting.

The best way to stop what he called Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s “Make Canada Great Again” agenda is to push Trudeau out, Collins said.

“I think the only path forward for us is to choose a new leader and present a new plan to Canadians with a different vision,” he said.

Trudeau’s only public comments on Monday came during a holiday party for Liberal donors. The prime minister said it had “not been an easy day” but otherwise didn’t discuss Freeland’s resignation or the caucus meeting.

Dominic LeBlanc was sworn in as finance minister following abrupt Freeland’s departure — an apparent attempt by Trudeau to deploy a close confidant as he struggles to shore up his shaky government and restore some stability.

LeBlanc, who has been friends with the prime minister since childhood, is one of Trudeau’s most trusted lieutenants.

The New Brunswick MP and cabinet minister recently joined Trudeau for dinner with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. He had been tasked with drafting the government’s billion-dollar border plan to appease American concerns about drugs and migrants coming into the U.S. from Canada.

Speaking to reporters after taking on his new role, LeBlanc said he will temporarily retain his public safety and intergovernmental affairs duties while also serving as finance minister — an enormous workload.

Despite serious questions about Trudeau’s future given what transpired today with Freeland, LeBlanc said the prime minister is focused on tackling persistent affordability and cost of living concerns — and dealing with the incoming Trump administration.

But the most immediate challenge for Trudeau is to appease an increasingly restless Liberal caucus and backbench MPs who want someone else in the top job.

Liberal MP Wayne Long, who was part of an earlier effort to oust Trudeau, said roughly a third of the 153 sitting Liberal MPs want the prime minister to go right away, while another third are on the fence and the remaining third are professed Trudeau loyalists.

Long said Trudeau must resign right away and trigger a leadership election to replace him.

“He’s messing with his legacy and it’s time to move on,” Long told CBC News. “Canadians are screaming, caucus is vocal — it’s just time, come on.”

Freeland’s resignation is a disastrous development for the government. It throws its economic agenda into a tailspin and leaves a huge gap on Trudeau’s front bench at a time when Liberal Party support has collapsed in the polls.

Freeland’s jaw-dropping move to leave just before tabling the economic statement is unprecedented. The statement is supposed to be the government’s fiscal road map at a time of great uncertainty, as Canada stares down Trump’s tariff threat.

In a letter to Trudeau that was subsequently posted to her social media account, the outgoing deputy prime minister said she had no choice but to resign after Trudeau approached her Friday about moving her to another cabinet role — minister without a portfolio with some responsibility for the Canada-U.S. relationship.

“On Friday, you told me you no longer want me to serve as your finance minister and offered me another position in the cabinet,” Freeland wrote, addressing Trudeau. “Upon reflection, I have concluded that the only honest and viable path is for me to resign from the cabinet.”

Freeland also took a jab at Trudeau’s handling of the country’s economy, denouncing what she called the government’s “costly political gimmicks” and imploring him to work collaboratively with the country’s premiers to take on Trump’s tariffs.

She conceded that she and Trudeau have been “at odds” in recent weeks.

A senior government official told CBC News that Freeland’s announcement was not expected today.

Just last week, at an event celebrating women in politics, Trudeau said he’s a “proud feminist” and cited his appointment of Canada’s first female finance minister.

“I’ve touted the adage, ‘Add women, change politics,’ which to us is more than just words,” he said.

Two days later, Trudeau would ask Freeland to leave that post, effectively pushing out the most senior woman in government.

The resignation derailed the fall economic statement and left officials at a media lockup scrambling to figure out what to do after the person who was set to present the statement abruptly quit.

After an hours-long delay, the embargoed reading for reporters went ahead and the document was quietly tabled in Parliament without the usual pageantry.

The statement revealed Canada’s finances are in worse shape than expected. The deficit for 2023-24 came in at $61.9 billion — billions more than the roughly $40 billion Freeland had promised it would be.

Tumultuous time for Trudeau

This is just the latest challenge for Trudeau, who has endured a very tumultuous six months.

The party lost two federal byelections in formerly rock-solid Liberal ridings in Toronto and Montreal this summer.

He also faced a caucus revolt earlier this fall, when about 25 of his own MPs wrote to Trudeau demanding he resign to save the party from electoral ruin.

Trudeau has brushed off those blows and repeatedly has said he will hold on to lead the party into the next campaign.

Freeland’s departure renews questions about his viability as leader and his decision-making.

Carlene Variyan, a former senior Liberal staffer, said it’s mind-boggling that Trudeau would try to shuffle Freeland out of her finance role just days before she was set to deliver the economic statement.

“There’s a level of delusion there that is hard to comprehend,” Variyan said. “In what universe?”

Variyan said if Trudeau had lost confidence in Freeland, there was a better “playbook” to follow than trying to dump her so close to a big moment for the government.

‘I don’t see a way out’

Poilievre said the government is “spiralling out of control right before our eyes.” He said Freeland’s departure comes “at the very worst time,” as Canada grapples with a series of economic challenges.

Poilievre said Freeland, who was recruited by Trudeau to run for the Liberals in 2013, “knows him better than anyone and she knows he’s out of control.”

“Everything is spiralling out of control. We simply cannot go on like this and it is up to Jagmeet Singh now to make that realization,” Poilievre said, calling on the NDP leader to help him bring down the government in a non-confidence vote.

Poilievre said Canadians must go to the polls as soon as possible, even if it means disrupting the Christmas holidays.

NDP Leader Singh said Trudeau must resign, telling reporters, “Justin Trudeau has to go.”

Asked if he would bring down the government at the earliest opportunity, he said, “All options are on the table. All options.”

Speaking later to CBC’s Power & Politics, MP Peter Julian, the NDP House leader, said the party will vote non-confidence in the government if Trudeau stays on as leader into the new year.

He said if this “Liberal debacle” continues into February or March, the NDP will pull its support for the government once and for all.

The House of Commons is expected to rise for its six-week Christmas break on Tuesday.

Liberal Ontario MP Francis Drouin said Freeland’s resignation means Trudeau himself needs to step down and let someone else take over.

“I think he needs to go,” Drouin told Radio-Canada. “I’ve been a great defender but I don’t see how we move forward.”

Drouin’s shift on this issue is significant because he previously told disaffected Liberal MPs to drop their plan to push Trudeau out, and to rally behind him to take on Poilievre.

Freeland’s departure shows Trudeau has lost control of the government’s agenda, Drouin said.

“I don’t see how this helps. I don’t see a way out.”

MPs call on Trudeau to resign

Six other sitting Liberal MPs — René Arseneault, Anthony Housefather, Wayne Long, Patrick Weiler, Helena Jaczek and Chad Collins — also said Trudeau must resign.

Jaczek, who served as public services procurement minister under Trudeau before he shuffled her out in 2023, said Trudeau’s move to push Freeland out of the job was distasteful.

“Let’s put it this way — firing the minister of finance who has served you extremely well is not what I’d call a trustworthy move,” she told reporters.

Asked if Trudeau should resign, Jaczek said yes.

Jody Wilson-Raybould, a former Liberal cabinet minister who left government under circumstances similar to Freeland’s departure, said it’s untenable for Trudeau to stay on at this point.

“When the general is losing his most loyal soldiers on the eve of a tariff war, the country desperately needs a new general,” she said. “It’s time, it’s long past time to go.”

Freeland sounds alarm over Trump tariff threat

In her letter to Trudeau, Freeland said that Canada “faces a grave challenge” and cited Trump’s threat to impose a punishing 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian goods.

“That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war,” Freeland wrote.

She signalled that she doesn’t think the economic path Canada is on under Trudeau’s leadership is a prudent one.

“That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment.”

Freeland did not specify in her letter what she meant by “costly political gimmicks.”

It could be a thinly veiled swipe at Trudeau’s plan to freeze the GST/HST for two months on some goods and send $250 cheques to all working people sometime in the new year.

The finance minister also urged Trudeau to work “in good faith and humility” with provincial and territorial premiers to build a “true Team Canada response.”

“Inevitably, our time in government will come to an end. 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,” Freeland said.

While stepping back from cabinet, Freeland told Trudeau she would stay on as Liberal MP and plans to run again under the party banner in the next federal election.

The finance minister’s resignation came moments after Housing Minister Sean Fraser announced he won’t seek re-election. Fraser said he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Six cabinet ministers have told Trudeau in recent weeks they are not running again in the next election.

MP Randy Boissonnault, Trudeau’s former employment minister, resigned amid scandal over his Indigenous ancestry claims and business dealings.

Those departures, combined with Freeland’s resignation, means there are now eight cabinet spots that need to be filled in short order.

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