Actually Trudeauver

His #2 jumps from cabinet

This is, in-part, a Canadian blog, and today’s events warrant some commentary.

We need to take that threat extremely seriously. 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.

This is from Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister of Canada who has been Justin Trudeau’s #2 since negotiating the NAFTA-successor USMCA trade deal in 2017. She’s been his trade minister, foreign affairs minister, intergovernmental affairs minister, and since COVID began, his finance minister. Today—with the government set to present its Fall economic update—she published her pugilistic resignation letter and left it all behind.

Yesterday, Sean Fraser, Trudeau’s young and energetic housing minister, announced he was leaving cabinet and not seeking re-election. He is the eighth (ninth with Freeland) minister to dip since the summer.

Trudeau’s government is imploding and risks sinking to third-party status in the next federal election, which has been forestalled three times in recent months by outside parties eager to exact destructive policy concessions.

Freeland is quitting in part because of a $250 ‘rebate’ cheque the government is rolling out to every worker earning <$150k. This is frivolous and desperate.

Yet the NDP (Canada’s labour party) is pushing to extend it to seniors and students. The former already get a $10k annual top-up to their state pension as a UBI for old folks; while the latter are going home for the holidays to their middle-class households (if they’re not, then they’re eligible for generous aid). Because of this, the electoral bribery is in the worst possible position of having been promised but not followed through upon.

Worse, the Bloc Quebecois (a Quebec nationalist party) wants to hike the old folk UBI and permanently lock Canadian dairy, eggs, and poultry out of any future trade deal. Both parties are attempting to hold the Liberal government hostage, demanding policies that will exacerbate the nation’s two largest problems: housing and economic growth.

This ugly situation is bound to undermine the government as it attempts to navigate the incoming Trump administration, which, as Freeland pointedly notes, is threatening 25% blanket tariffs on Canadian goods. Trump does not like Trudeau—as recent trolling has made clear—and the fractious domestic situation means no national unity in the face of the challenge is forthcoming.

Where the Trudeau government failed on housing and growth, it succeeded in pricing pollution, legalizing cannabis, and significantly reduced poverty. There was an optimistic vision of 100 million Canadians by 2100. It is, however, running out of ideas and any semblance of political capital. All excitement around the party has been drained and the nation has lapsed into a political malaise.

Had they lost in 2021 their carbon price would have survived in some form; now it will die. Poverty, reaching an all-time low during the pandemic, has been rising ever since. Meanwhile, the finances of the nation are feeling the impacts of welfare state expansion at a time of no growth.

Freeland’s leaving is the breaking point—the government will now have to accept an election after the holidays. And though this is a liberal blog, it is not a partisan Liberal one. Trudeau has not earned the market liberal’s support, and efforts to rope candidates who one day could into his cabinet accomplish little but the proliferation of toxic political associations down the line.