Singh’s party has been the only leg of a shakey table that’s been propping up the Liberals since they eked out another minority in 2021. The NDP leader has used the grip he holds to squeeze money out of the government for such favoured projects as
sort of a national pharmacare and
sort of a national dental care, both of which provide limited benefits to specific recipient groups at serious cost to a treasury that is already deeply in debt.
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Well, good for him, you might sayWhat else is the NDP for but to get money for social benefits for those who can’t otherwise obtain them?
Fair enough. But Canada’s finances are now so fraught the prime minister has seen his finance minister tender her resignation while publicly castigating him for pursuing “costly political gimmicks which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment.”
She didn’t have to spell out which gimmicks she meant. Canadians had already figured that out for themselves, making clear that they recognized Trudeau’s last-minute, desperation-driven unveiling of a Christmas tax break and a $250 handout as a political stunt intended to buy votes.
Freeland’s departure leaves Trudeau isolated at the top of a regime in which even his most senior cabinet member no longer has confidence.
In addition to her role as finance minister, Freeland served as deputy prime minister, a post bestowed on her by Trudeau at a time he recognized her as his most able lieutenant and a possible successor. Yet so corroded has her trust in him become that she chose to walk away just hours before she was due to deliver an economic update intended to set out the country’s course at a time of immense uncertainty.
Her departure, she said, came after Trudeau chose the Friday before her speech to inform her he no longer wanted her in the job. That inexplicable example of horrific timing came after reports he’d been once-again wooing former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney as her replacement, even though he lacks a seat in the Commons.
No one knows what Carney thinks of this mess, as he wisely evaded invitations to share his thoughts. Could anyone with his background possibly throw themselves willingly into a tire fire like the one spewing toxic fumes across Canada’s benighted capital?
Freeland’s rebuke is easily the most damning to strike a flailing prime minister, but adds to a growing body of humiliating rebuffs. His cabinet has been steadily leaking members as ministers depart in search of more secure employment than a government consistently 15-20 points back in the polls, led by a man the majority of Canadians say they
wish would resign.
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So battered is his standing that the incoming president of the United States has taken to openly mocking
him, referring to Trudeau as “Governor … of the Great State of Canada.”
Billionaire Elon Musk derided him as “an insufferable tool.”
Canada’s premiers lectured him over critical remarks on Trump’s victory that Ontario Premier Doug Ford denounced as “not helpful at all.” As it happens, those remarks centred on Americans’ failure to choose a female president, an obvious irony now that the only woman ever to serve as Canada’s finance minister says she can no longer work with him.
Freeland’s rebuke is easily the most damning to strike a flailing prime minister
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Trudeau has moved the government sharply to the left; between them, the Liberal/NDP and NDP/Liberals share about 40 per cent of voter support. It’s possible a significant number of “progressives” who can’t bring themselves to back Trudeau again could opt for New Democrats instead, potentially returning the party to the Official Opposition status it held before 2015.
