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His days as Prime Minister are numbered. Justin Trudeau, the very woke, very leftist leader of Canada was already massively unpopular and facing defeat in the next election.
Now that election may happen sooner than he intended, thanks to Canada’s economic situation. His finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, resigned yesterday after being fired by Trudeau from the finance position. She was apparently offered a different job, but declined to take it.
Freeland, who was also deputy prime minister, said Trudeau had told her on Friday he no longer wanted her to serve as finance minister and offered her another role in the Cabinet. But she said in her resignation letter that the only “honest and viable path” was to leave the Cabinet.
“For the past number of weeks, you and I have found ourselves at odds about the best path forward for Canada,” Freeland said.
Freeland and Trudeau disagreed about a two-month sales tax holiday and 250 Canadian dollar ($175) checks to Canadians that were recently announced. Freeland said Canada is dealing with Trump’s threat to impose sweeping 25% tariffs and should eschew “costly political gimmicks” it can “ill afford.”
“Our country is facing a grave challenge,” Freeland said in her letter. “That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war.”
A Liberal party official said Freeland was offered a position as minister in charge of Canada-U.S. relations without portfolio and without a department. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of not being authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said the position would have been in name only and wouldn’t have come with any of the tools Freeland previously had when she negotiated the trade with the United States.
As many pointed out online, Freeland is just as bad as Trudeau, especially when it came to flexing government power during the truckers’ protest.
Canada’s Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has resigned.
Here she is laughing about freezing the bank accounts of truckers who protested Trudeau’s tyrannical Covid policies.
Good riddance! pic.twitter.com/44rRGJDuBL
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 16, 2024
If Trudeau thought firing Freeland from her role as finance minister and deputy prime minister was going to save his government, he was very, very wrong. Especially after the economic numbers came out.
Canada’s fiscal deficit for the year ended March came in at C$61.9 billion ($43.45 billion) – about 50% more than what was projected and missing one of the three key fiscal objectives Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland had set to achieve.
The fiscal update, known as the Fall Economic Statement, was much delayed this year leading to widespread speculation by economists and analysts that the government would have blown past its fiscal targets.
The update came after Freeland tendered her resignation on differences with Trudeau on government spending.
In 2023-24, the government is expecting to record expenses to the tune of about C$16.4 billion related to Indigenous contingent liabilities and C$4.7 billion related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which pushed its deficit figures higher, the fiscal update said.
Even without these expenses, the deficit would have been roughly C$40.8 billion – still higher than the C$40 billion that had been forecast.
In November 2023, Freeland promised a 2023-24 deficit at or below C$40.1 billion ($28.17 billion), to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio in 2024-25 below 42.4% and to keep it declining. She pledged a declining deficit-to-GDP ratio in 2024-25 and to keep deficits below 1% in 2026-27 and future years.
While the government managed to meet its debt-to-GDP target, its deficit-to-GDP shot up to 2.1% from 1.4% forecast.
The government, in its update, changed its objective to only maintaining its debt-to-GDP target, and moved away from its deficit-related goals.
So, it looks like Trudeau was trying to buy himself a little goodwill – and votes – with a tax holiday and rebate checks, while Freeland was being slightly more pragmatic – and Trudeau fired her for it. Wow, for someone who tried scolding the United States for not electing a woman president, Trudeau seemingly has no problem firing his own female deputy prime minister!
Trudeau scolds Americans for electing Donald Trump rather than "its first woman president.
"I want you to know that I am and always will be a proud feminist," the PM adds. pic.twitter.com/Ehhb6j3C0C
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) December 11, 2024
But all of this instability, plus the economic forecast, and the results of a special election Conservative win in British Columbia to fill an empty seat, has the Liberal Party hanging on by a thread. Some want to hold an election right away, instead of waiting for later in the coming year (it has to be held by October 20, 2025). Whenever that election happens, though, it’s clear that Trudeau is looking at the end of his political career for now.
Angry Liberal legislators met Trudeau on Monday night, with some repeating calls for him to go.
“We’re not united. There’s still a number of our members who feel we need a change in leadership,” said Chad Collins, a legislator from Ontario, Canada’s most populous province and a Liberal stronghold.
“I think the only path forward for us is to choose a new leader and to present a new plan to Canadians with a different vision,” he said after the meeting.
The “different vision” is already here for Canada, but it doesn’t belong to the Liberals. Just listen to this absolute banger of a speech given by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre yesterday after the deficit news broke. Poilievre will most likely be the next prime minister of Canada. He describes the real and painful economic struggle that Canadian workers are facing, and how the Trudeau government has failed them.
Imagine this man working with President Trump in the future. Speaking of President Trump, he is still trolling “Governor” Trudeau over his failures.
PRESIDENT TRUMP trolling TRUDEAU 😅 and speaking truth about Chrystia Freeland pic.twitter.com/ETfeE87NSz
— Melissa 🇨🇦 (@MelissaLMRogers) December 17, 2024
It’s got to be grinding Trudeau’s teeth to have Trump keep referring to “the Great State of Canada” and himself as the “governor” – which is exactly why Trump is doing it. It’s honestly hilarious, hurts no one, and needles Justin Trudeau.
As of right now, it looks like Trudeau is going to dig his heels in and hang on for as long as possible. The parliamentary break for the holidays will begin after today (according to the House of Commons calendar) and they will not be back in session until after Trump is inaugurated (if the calendar schedule holds). With Parliament not in session, Trudeau can’t be forced to call for an election via a “no confidence” vote – and he says that he is still the best thing for Canada.
For the first time since his deputy prime minister’s resignation, Trudeau made a public appearance, speaking at a Liberal holiday party Monday night.
“It has obviously been an eventful day,” said the prime minister in his opening remarks. “It has not been an easy day… I wake up every single day thinking about how to make this nation work better for all Canadians.”
Trudeau’s remarks on the events of the day were limited to calling it “not an easy day,” before shifting focus to criticize Conservative Leader Poilievre’s vision for the nation and highlight the accomplishments the Liberal Party has made during its nine years in power.
“I cannot emphasize enough just how damn proud I am of what we have done over the past nine years, and it’s because of you,” said the prime minister, as he looked around the room filled with Liberal cabinet members.
The prime minister also took aim at Poilievre, who earlier Monday called for Trudeau to step down.
“You know what Pierre Poilievre would do if he was in power,” said Trudeau. “Behind the little slogan, Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives, is a vision of the poorest. A vision based on the shortcomings of the services Canadians rely on. He says Canada is broken while actually trying his damnedest to break it.”
Tell me more about those “shortcomings of the services,” Justin, especially since the Canadian postal service just came off a strike that lasted almost A FULL MONTH, and STILL isn’t resolved. What amazing services you have in Canada! Nothing is broken, huh? Or should I say, eh?
Trudeau’s griping about Poilievre is clear projection. He knows he’s about to lose his role as prime minister, and his tax holiday proposal, coupled with rebate checks, is just a way to pay off voters so the Liberals’ loss might be less punishing. We’ll see if it works, and just how much longer Trudeau can last.
Featured image: , Wikimedia under CC BY 2.0 license; image cropped
NTSOG says: “Justin Trudeau, the very woke, very leftist leader of Canada was already massively unpopular and facing defeat in the next election.”
I have always perceived Trudeau as smug and arrogant having contempt for Canadian ‘deplorables’ like the truck drivers. In this he is typical of socialists the world over.
Apparently, he is trying to buy votes using taxpayers’ own money as is also happening in Australia where the socialist Labor/Green government is in serious economic trouble. As Thatcher said, ‘The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money’.
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