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Chrystia Freeland has only just begun to fight. That’s one of the many possible conclusions you can draw from her remarkable resignation letter. It clearly points the blame for her government’s recently announced (and widely criticized) GST holiday and $250 rebate cheques — that she describes as “costly political gimmicks” — back at the Prime Minister. It also clearly signals her intention to stick around, whether that’s as the Member of Parliament for University-Rosedale or a contender for Justin Trudeau’s job.
Trudeau pretty clearly had this coming. Despite being one of his longest-standing political allies and the first female finance minister in Canada’s first self-professed feminist government, he was reportedly trying to replace Freeland at finance with Mark Carney. Worse, despite that rumour flying around Ottawa, which Freeland at least partly confirmed in her letter, he was still talking up his government’s feminist credentials. “I want you to know that I am, and always will be, a proud feminist,” he said at a Dec. 10 dinner promoting women’s involvement in politics. “You will always have an ally in me and in my government.”
With allies like these, they might have wondered, who really needs enemies?
Then again, his reported attempts to swap out Freeland for Carney isn’t exactly surprising. If anything, the disconnect between his stated ambitions and actual choices is consistent with an approach to governing that defines Trudeau’s nine years in power. Where former prime minister Jean Chretien believed in under-selling and over-delivering, Trudeau is guided by a fondness for over-promising and under-fulfillling. From electoral reform and Indigenous reconciliation to his pledge to govern in a more open and transparent way, Trudeau’s words keep writing cheques his deeds can’t cash. When it comes to being Canada’s first feminist prime minister, the cheque just bounced — hard.
At this point, Freeland being the one in cabinet to finally turn the knife inward almost feels predictable. It wasn’t that long ago, after all, that Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott ran afoul of their leader — and were tossed out of caucus as a result. He and his government barely survived the ensuing fallout, thanks in large part to Andrew Scheer’s utter lack of charisma and talent, but this seems like a far more grievous political wound. The question now is whether his government has any blood left to bleed — and if Freeland can provide the political transfusion it needs to survive.
It’s not clear yet that she’s running for anything other than her own dignity and self-worth. I’ve been critical of her work as Finance Minister in the past, and I remain unconvinced that she has the ability to connect with people that’s required to win an election. Her history of verbal gaffes, from the failed attempt to relate to Canadians and their cost of living concerns by talking about her household’s Disney Plus subscription to her more recent pronouncement that the economy was merely in a “vibecession” have been easy fodder for Conservative attacks. Her background as a financial journalist with global connections and relationships, meanwhile, is a poor fit for the populist moment we’re in.
Then again, maybe she’s a perfect fit for what the Liberals really need right now: a chance. As pollster Kyla Ronellenfitsch’s data shows, Freeland is in a far better position right now to offer that than Trudeau. “Chrystia Freeland is not overwhelmingly disliked. About 1 in 3 Canadians have an unfavourable impression of her, and her ‘very unfavourable’ have actually declined since the spring. The most common perception of Freeland is… nothing. Twenty six per cent of Canadians have a “neutral impression” of her, and 1 in 5 don’t know who she is at all.”
Freeland might be trying to change that. By spelling out her differences with the prime minister on economic policy, and making it clear that the recent attempts to bribe Canadians with their own money was his idea, Freeland is creating space to articulate a different option for voters. She could, at least in theory, present herself as the face of a more centrist Liberal party, one that takes things like jobs and investment more seriously. No, it might not work — but at this point, with the party 20 points down in the polls, almost anything is better than the status quo.
This is an eerily similar setup to what happened in the United States last summer, when Joe Biden finally succumbed to reason and reality and stepped aside. And yes, like Harris, Freeland’s opponents would weigh her leadership down with the most unpopular aspects of her government’s track record. In other words, she might want to break more visibly from them than Harris did.
I don’t think she can actually beat Poilieve at this point, mostly because I don’t think anyone can. But if Freeland could deliver the same bounce that Kamala Harris provided for the Democrats then she would be remembered as a saviour of the Liberal Party of Canada — one who, ironically, would have saved it from its last saviour. If she could somehow defeat prime minister Pierre Poilievre in the election that followed? Well, she’d be fulfilling the political destiny that Trudeau could have laid out for her back in 2021. You know, if he’d actually practised the political feminism that he preaches.
Comments
The only hope the Liberals have at this point is Justin Trudeau steps down, so the Liberals can reshape, refocus the party, but it will be too little, too late for the next election at this point.
The next few days will be tactically very interesting (personal choices), as will the next few months for more strategic reasons (personal and party choices and electorate reaction).
In hindsight, I've sometimes felt it was a missed opportunity when, in 2017 or 2018 (I forget when it became apparent), a subset of the women in cabinet did not, as a group and in response to their treatment to date, offer the PM a closed-door, "feminist" reading of the Riot Act (I forget my specific reason at the time but I think it had something to do with how I imagined Trudeau believed their presence in cabinet reflected upon himself, rather than their abilities and the look of Canadian Society; i.e. tokenism but on a grand and capable scale). In my view at the time, the group -- McKenna; Philpott; Wilson-Raybould; Freeland; Joli; Monsef (less so); Bennett -- could have served notice to the PM that they were there to be cabinet ministers, not roses on his lapels.
I can certainly understand why they did not do that, but I do wonder if they talked it over amongst themselves.
They certainly SHOULD have, but what happened to Hilary and then Kamala explains much. Women have always read the room better than anyone because they've had to.
"In my view at the time, the group -- McKenna; Philpott; Wilson-Raybould; Freeland; Joli; Monsef (less so); Bennett -- could have served notice to the PM that they were there to be cabinet ministers, not roses on his lapels."
Well said. The panelists on the CBC's National At Issue segment discussed this issue, being pawns of the PMO and not being allowed to mature in their own portfolios to the point needed to achieve the best results for the people. Wilson Raybould was the first to take the rose and pluck all the petals off, and good for her. In excerpts I read from her subsequent 'Indian in Cabinet' book, Trudeau flew to Vancouver and met JWR at the Pacific Rim hotel and angrily demanded that she respect "all the good things I've done for you," or words of similar tack. What was she supposed to do? Give SNC Lavelin a get out of jail card for its criminality only because it was a big donor to the Liberal Party? JWR stood her ground on principles of law and justice, not on favouratism and money. The Attorney General's position is supposed to be above government and political donor's circumstances.
JWR resigned very quickly for violating political biases that were clearly not concerned about the principles of law and justice. The great irony is that the Libs let SNC go pretty much free, but then the company went through it's own cleansing operation and didn't come out unhurt. JWR went on and was elected as an independent by a pretty wide majority due to an electorate that was angry at Trudeau's arrogance and kneejerk action. That was after he broke several promises, especially on biggies like electoral reform, and was also the start of a diminished minority rule for good reason.
Now Freeland. Trudeau's most stupid mistake today is continuing to think that his name is a big brand, and does not emanate a fallible human being.
Great.
So we can only view this through the current bright red, slavering lens of social media that puts absolutely everything on steroids, including "populist" politics, already wholly noxious on its own.
The resulting glorification of "ordinary" obviously automatically excludes Rhodes scholars, who OF ALL PEOPLE need not apply for top jobs in governance if the majority of us simply don't LIKE them, or are not sufficiently ENTERTAINED by them.
This utter fluff when the political party that stunningly denies ALL science and expertise generally is somehow also simply BOUND to win our next election DESPITE Americans having just made that very, insane choice to the horror of all the sane people who PERCEIVE the actual, roiling context of existential climate change.
It's like fully half of us have regressed to "primitive," frightened people mesmerized by the gale force winds of a coming storm that exceed anything we've ever seen before, but instead of retreating to the shelter of available caves (like most of them clearly did, or we wouldn't have survived as a species), we've reacted by fervently joining hands and chanting loudly skyward in joyfully stupid solidarity.
It takes "voting against your own best interests" to a whole other level and has happened courtesy of the political right wing using the unprecedented tools of social media and a pandemic to take "populism" to a whole other level that amounts to eschewing all levels by just marching off the f***ing cliff altogether in the ultimate search for novelty....
This is where Pierre Trudeau was wrong, quoted by Justin at his funeral, lauding "ordinary people" as all being worthy of compassion and respect, EVERY single one. Absolute nonsense; roughly half of us are unmitigated idiots, and the rest of us REALLY need to at the very frigging least STOP saying so sanctimoniously and stupidly that "there's no place in our country/our politics/whatever, for racism/sexism/violence/cruelty" when there clearly bloody well IS.
Personally I see Marc Miller as someone capable of calling BS among our limping Liberals; I saw him walk away from the mike at one particularly repetitive and silly question at a scrum.
Implosion
Freeland is smart, has grit and she still wouldn't be elected as leader of the Liberals. Why? Because she has little charisma and horrible verbal comms.
Outside of Liberal insiders she is also not very popular.
Again, into the weeds with personal opinions of who's likable or not rather than what should be first and foremost, i.e. whether or not a candidate is affiliated with the party that has displayed a proven track record of governing effectively, even during a pandemic that further qualifies them to potentially act as urgently as is needed on climate change because, again, unbelievable that this is even a criteria--they ACKNOWLEDGE science and expertise. The fact that the conservatives DO NOT, AND are also "convoy-adjacent" should not only disqualify them as serious contenders, but should put them on a par with the Maxime Bernier's extreme People's Party, particularly since he only started that after just barely losing the leadership contest for the CPC.
It's also unbelievable that people have so eagerly dove straight down into the "brave new world" of social media that it's become interwoven with and indistinguishable from "mainstream media" reporting, kind of like that crawl beneath TV news, and recent ads creeping onto our TV screens with shows WHILE we're watching them.
And so now we've got "shitposting" for example, just one of the edifying new terms coined for the avalanche of "opinion" we're inundated with, along with all the new words for what is casual trashing of the truth.
Not just coincidentally, no one in big tech supported the democrats....