Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland speaks during a news conference in Ottawa, June 18, 2024.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland played down speculation her job may be at risk, saying she and other cabinet ministers as well as Liberal MPs are spending the summer listening to Canadians.
Ms. Freeland told reporters Monday at an event in Toronto that she doesn’t spend time worrying about whether she will be shuffled out of the finance portfolio because, “for me, my focus is on working hard to deliver for Canadians every single day.”
“I feel I have the support I need to do my job and to focus on what my job is,” Ms. Freeland said when asked by a reporter if she felt comfortable keeping her post as finance minister.
The Globe and Mail reported earlier this month, citing government sources, that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford and other Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) officials view Ms. Freeland as ineffective in selling the government’s economic policies, which have come under assault from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
Other criticism includes that Ms. Freeland is not doing enough to win over members of the Liberal caucus, The Globe reported. One scenario discussed in the PMO was to shuffle Ms. Freeland to foreign affairs if former central banker Mark Carney could be lured into the government as finance minister.
The Prime Minister has held talks with Mr. Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, to join the Liberal government. The outreach to Mr. Carney comes as the government has trailed the Conservative Party by a double-digit margin for months and after the Liberal Party lost the Toronto-St. Paul’s riding, considered a safe seat, to a Conservative in June.
Liberal MP James Maloney, who joined Ms. Freeland at a news conference where she announced the April budget’s promise of 30-year amortizations for some insured mortgages would take effect Aug. 1, jumped to the minister’s defence.
“We have complete confidence in Chrystia Freeland as the finance minister,” he said. “Chrystia Freeland has done a great job and there isn’t a single person in my caucus who’d say anything differently.”
Ms. Freeland said she and other Liberals MPs are out knocking on doors to hear the concerns of Canadians over the summer months.
“What we need to do is be out there listening to Canadians,” she said. “That is our job to go into our communities and to hear from Canadians about what they want, what they need and then to work hard on delivering that.”
One thing she heard on doorsteps she is said that “high interest rates have been really a pressure and a concern” for Canadians, but that “they are very aware that interest rates have come down last week and they told me that was a relief for them.”
The listening tour, however, does not mean the government plans to do a economic policy reset. In fact, Ms. Freeland told reporters the recent decline in interest rates and wage growth shows “our responsible budget and economic plan are working.”
“Canada is seeing its economy grow more quickly than others G7 countries,” she said.
But Ms. Freeland said the government need to do more to make it possible for younger Canadians to buy homes. That is why she said the the government introduced 30-year amortizations for insured mortgages for first-time homebuyers purchasing new builds.
“It means first-time homebuyers will now have 30 years to pay off their mortgages instead of 25 years. That translates into lower monthly payments,” she said.