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https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/21/justin-trudeau-ottawa-chaos-
00195738

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s week started with a crisis his 
opponents likened to a “gong show at the bottom of a dumpster fire, 
wrapped up in a cluster.”

Canada’s three-term prime minister managed to make it to Friday when he 
announced a Cabinet shakeup triggered in part by the bombshell exit of 
Chrystia Freeland, who quit Monday as head of finance and deputy prime 
minister.

Trudeau spent the week holed up in his office, except for appearances at a 
couple of high-profile holiday parties where he sounded defiant and 
upbeat.

“It is the absolute privilege of my life to serve as your prime minister,” 
he told a gathering of his top donors on Monday — just 30 minutes after an 
emergency caucus meeting where MPs urged him to step down.

His office canceled year-end interviews and his press team ignored most 
media questions while Trudeau contemplated his next moves.

“We have a lot of work to do and that’s what we’re focused on,” he said 
after blowing by journalists after a Cabinet meeting later Friday 
afternoon.

Parliament does not return until Jan. 27 — days after Donald Trump’s 
inauguration. In theory, Trudeau has time to consider his options, but 
realistically he’s running out of time.

He could stick around to fight the next election, which could come sooner 
rather than later in 2025. Once MPs are back in their seats, opposition 
leader Jagmeet Singh has vowed to bring down the minority government with 
a no-confidence vote.

There’s no mechanism to oust the Liberal leader. Trudeau could announce 
plans to resign, sticking around until a new leader is chosen. It’s a 
process that could take several months. He could also prorogue Parliament 
in the new year — essentially pulling the plug on it — to buy the 
government more time.

He could step aside entirely and an interim PM would be put in place, a 
scenario so rare it would make history in itself.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been crushing Liberals in 
national polls for more than a year. Amid Trump’s return to the White 
House and looming tariff war, he’s amped up his calls for an election as 
soon as possible — a contest he’s expected to win in a landslide.

“Some feminist. The same week as Trudeau was insulting Americans for not 
electing a woman president, he was busy throwing his own woman deputy 
prime minister under the bus to replace her with a man,” Poilievre said of 
the “incredible, ridiculous, embarrassing” day. “You can’t make this stuff 
up.”

Outside meeting rooms on Parliament Hill and inside Liberal holiday 
parties, POLITICO spoke to more than a dozen Liberal MPs, staffers and 
party members for insight into the chaos. They were granted anonymity to 
speak freely.

The mayhem started Monday, when Freeland quit as Canada’s finance minister 
hours before she was set to present a major economic plan. In the words of 
one official: Freeland dropped an “atomic bomb” on the Prime Minister’s 
Office.

Freeland’s exit note referenced weeks of tension with Trudeau over “costly 
political gimmicks” — a Yuletide tax holiday for Canadians — at a time 
when she said the federal treasury should be focused on a potential tariff 
war.

She used her exit to warn that how Ottawa deals with Trump “will define us 
for a generation, and perhaps longer.”

Trudeau informed Freeland last week during a Zoom call that he intended to 
replace her as finance minister. The party was rumored to be courting 
former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, who has been flirting with the 
Liberals for a couple of years now. Many expect him to run for the Liberal 
leadership one day.

Trudeau offered Freeland a new role in charge of Canada-U.S. relations and 
was under the impression — through texts — that she was willing to take it 
on. It was not until Monday as his motorcade pulled onto the Hill that he 
discovered she was out. POLITICO has not seen the texts.

One senior government source told POLITICO Carney “switched up at the last 
minute” saying he wouldn’t join the Cabinet if Freeland wasn’t there.

By the time Trudeau walked upstairs to his office, Freeland had posted her 
resignation letter on X. Trump rejoiced in her resignation. One senior 
government source said the president-elect expressed dislike for Freeland, 
who helped renegotiate NAFTA, during his dinner with Trudeau at Mar-a-
Lago.

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‘A dumpster fire, wrapped up in a cluster’: Inside the chaos of Justin 
Trudeau’s Ottawa
From then on through to Friday’s Cabinet shuffle, senior officials in the 
Government of Canada made it up as they went along.

Networks were airing live footage of Trudeau addressing the caucus at an 
emergency meeting at the same time his team was insisting he wasn’t in the 
room. He told the room there’s “two sides to the story” but has left his 
caucus widely in the dark, several lawmakers said.

Trudeau has been under pressure since his party lost a Toronto stronghold 
in a special election in June. Liberals have lost two more since, 
including a blowout in British Columbia on Monday — the same day Freeland 
resigned.

The Prime Minister’s Office has been trying to source the media leaks. 
Staffers say they don’t know who to trust. There were even tears this 
week. Transport Minister Anita Anand was visibly choked up. After a rare 
December Cabinet shuffle, some ministers’ staffers are wondering if 
they’ll have a job after Christmas.

Freeland’s exit has reenergized the Liberal MPs who attempted a caucus 
revolt earlier this fall.

“Finally we’ve got somebody like Chrystia Freeland who has made a major 
move, and my hope is a lot of Cabinet ministers will start to speak up and 
say publicly what they all know: The prime minister’s political career is 
essentially over,” Liberal backbencher Wayne Long told POLITICO.

Trudeau’s struggles, both internally and in opinion polls, place him in a 
global line of sinking incumbents — U.K. Tory PM Rishi Sunak, France’s 
Emmanuel Macron, U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf 
Scholz.

At the Liberal Christmas party on Wednesday, a photo line for Freeland 
rivaled the one for the PM. At a Liberal afterparty, it was all anyone 
could talk about.

When Trudeau’s new Cabinet was sworn in Friday, his top lawmakers urged 
the party to unite and refocus their frustration on a collective 
adversary: Donald Trump.


-- 
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look 
forward to America being great again.

The disease known as Kamala Harris has been effectively treated and 
eradicated.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem.  It has none.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden 
fiasco, President Trump.  

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.