Trudeau tries to brush off deputy’s exit as festive family spat

By Thomas Seal, Randy Thanthong-Knight and Laura Dhillon Kane

A defiant Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, all smiles at his political party’s end-of-year festivities, tried to downplay the most serious challenge yet facing his leadership.

“Like most families, sometimes we have fights around the holidays,” Trudeau told a gathering for his Liberal Party’s 153 lawmakers and their staffers in Ottawa on Tuesday. “But of course, like most families, we find our way through it. You know, I love this country, I deeply love this party, I love you guys, and love is what families are all about.”

That was a glancing reference to the exit of his longtime trusted Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, one day after she shocked the country by publishing a scathing resignation letter instead of delivering an expected fiscal update. The letter slammed Trudeau for “costly political gimmicks” at the expense of preparing for a tariff war with Donald Trump.

She wrote that she felt her only option was to quit after Trudeau told her Friday he was removing her as finance minister and offering her a different role. In that conversation, which happened over Zoom, Trudeau told her he was replacing her with Brookfield Asset Management Chair Mark Carney, several media outlets including the Globe and Mail reported. Freeland resigned Monday morning and Trudeau named Dominic LeBlanc, not Carney, as finance minister later that day.

“In politics, there are always tough days and big challenges,” Trudeau said in the speech largely focused on celebrating party staffers. But he said the Liberals don’t “shy away from these moments. We put in the work, whether it’s easy or hard.”

Freeland is by far the most high-profile Liberal to criticise Trudeau’s leadership yet, and her departure may prove a fatal blow. Since the party lost special elections in once-safe Toronto and Montreal seats earlier this year, and another in a swing district on Monday, a drumbeat of caucus dissent has gotten louder. A national election is due by October.

So far unable to reverse a deep polling deficit against his main rival Pierre Poilievre of the Conservative Party, Trudeau nonetheless brushed aside about two dozen Liberal members of parliament who signed a letter calling for him to step down two months ago.

But the number calling for his resignation has grown to about 45, Wayne Long, a Liberal lawmaker from New Brunswick, said in an interview.

“He’s delusional if he thinks he can continue on this trajectory. The country wants him to step down,” Long said. “He needs to do the right thing for the party and for the country. He needs to step aside. He needs to allow this party to heal, to rebuild and present viable alternatives.”

There are “great people” within the Liberal caucus who could be wonderful party leaders, such as Freeland herself, LeBlanc or Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly, Long said. There may be a private-sector candidate, he added, including Carney, who serves in a number of philanthropic and business roles including as Bloomberg Inc. chair.

“We can do this if we have the will to do it and the courage to do it,” Long said. “We stay static at our own peril and we all know it.”

Parliament is now on a break until late January, and Long and several other caucus members chose to return to their ridings rather than attend the holiday party. Inside the large hall lit up in Liberal red, the festive mood marked a stark contrast from the grim discussions about the government’s future that have been unfolding over the past two days in Ottawa.

Trudeau walked on stage to loud cheers and a 30-second standing ovation from the crowded room. At one point before he appeared, the Michael Buble song Home punctuated classic Christmas tunes. The lyrics included: “Let me go home, I’ve had my run. Baby, I’m done. I gotta go home.”