General
In Top Minister’s Resignation, Shades of an Earlier Political Crisis for Trudeau
Chrystia Freeland’s departure this week recalls the 2019 SNC-Lavalin affair, in which Jody Wilson-Raybould quit Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet after a demotion.
On Monday morning, I was on my way out to hole up with other reporters to take an advance look at the government’s fall economic statement, mostly to see what it said about border security. Then Chrystia Freeland put out her resignation letter.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau leaving Parliament’s West Block on Friday afternoon.Credit…Cole Burston for The New York Times
Ms. Freeland’s stinging rebuke of the government’s recent economic giveaways and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to oust her as finance minister created a political wildfire in Ottawa, which has placed Mr. Trudeau’s political future and Liberal Party control in jeopardy.
[Read: Top Canada Minister Resigns, Threatening Trudeau’s Hold on Power]
[Read: The Trump Factor Further Shakes Up Canada’s Politics]
[Read: Trump Takes Credit for New Border Security Plan Outlined by Canada]
[From Opinion: Worthwhile Canadian Resignation]
In her overview of how Mr. Trudeau got here, Matina Stevis-Gridneff, our Canada bureau chief, writes that the prime minister’s political career “has taken him from glamorous liberal standard-bearer to the butt of jokes by President-elect Donald J. Trump and his acolytes.”
