MNI: Canada Finance Minister Quits Cabinet On Budget Day
MNI (OTTAWA) - Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland quit cabinet Monday hours before she was expected to deliver a budget statement with a deficit that broke her own fiscal guidelines and at nearly the same time the housing minister quit, putting pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to prove he retains the confidence of his Liberal Party needed to continue governing.
"On Friday, you told me you no no longer want me to serve as your Finance Minister and offered me another position in the cabinet," Freeland said in a letter posted to the X social media website. "I have concluded that the only viable and honest path is for me to resign from the Cabinet."
Freeland also mentioned Canada's fiscal situation saying the threat of a 25% U.S. tariff "means keeping our fiscal powder dry, and that means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment." (See: MNI INTERVIEW: BOC Faces Recessionary Risk On Tariff Hit: Lane)
Harmony between the finance minister and prime minister is a bedrock convention of Canada's parliamentary system, and this split will add to the opposition's case to force a non-confidence vote triggering a snap election ahead of one due next fall.
Freeland and Trudeau had been seen as very close politically and on fiscal policy until this summer, when media reports citing unnamed sources said she could be demoted or dropped. Around that time Mark Carney was named as a special economic adviser to the Liberal Party. Freeland took several swings at addressing voter concerns about a cost of living and housing squeeze but Liberals remained well behind Conservatives in opinion polls.