Sources told the Globe and Mail this week that the PMO is concerned Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is an ineffective communicator for the government’s economic message.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
Uh-oh. The Prime Minister says he has full confidence in his finance minister. Sounds like Chrystia Freeland is dangling at the end of a thread.
You might recall the moment in August, 2020, when sources said Mr. Trudeau’s previous finance minister, Bill Morneau, might no longer be the person the Prime Minister wanted in the post.
That’s when the Prime Minister’s Office put out an official statement saying that Mr. Trudeau had “full confidence” in Mr. Morneau and he would keep up the important work he was doing. A week later, he was gone.
On Thursday, The Globe and Mail cited sources saying that the Prime Minister’s Office is concerned that Ms. Freeland, also the Deputy Prime Minister, is an ineffective communicator for the government’s economic message and there have been discussions about the possibility of replacing her with former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney.
The PMO put out an eerily similar statement to the one they issued for Mr. Morneau four years earlier. It must be stapled to the file on messy scenes with finance ministers.
In 2020, Mr. Trudeau had sought behind the scenes to recruit Mr. Carney to replace Mr. Morneau before he eventually settled on Ms. Freeland. This time, he was not exactly covert.
Prime Minister urges Mark Carney to join government
“I have been talking with Mark Carney for years now about getting him to join federal politics,” he told reporters at the NATO summit in Washington, stressing the word “years.” “I think he would be an outstanding addition at a time when Canadians need good people to step up in politics.”
He might as well have tapped his foot impatiently and declared it is time for Mr. Carney to come to the aid of the party he hopes to eventually lead.
Mr. Trudeau did have nice things to say about Ms. Freeland, that she is a friend and ally and partner and will continue to be, talked about her lead role on housing and child care, and saying she will continue to lead on such things. That might sound like a statement that she’s staying, unless you remember how the PMO said Mr. Morneau would “keep up doing the work that Canadians rely on,” but did not specify he’d only keep doing it for a week.
On Thursday, Mr. Trudeau didn’t take the simple step of saying clearly that Ms. Freeland will remain as Finance Minister.
That must be uncomfortable for Ms. Freeland, putting her tenure in charge of the public finances into question.
But rest assured, it is all part of a cunning plan. Mr. Trudeau and his PMO apparently think it might be time to put a new face on the Liberal government’s economic message and changing the cabinet’s most prominent minister.
And that’s exactly what many Liberals wanted Mr. Trudeau to do. A year ago. Before the Liberals’ slide in the polls became a downward spiral that now appears to spell political disaster.
Instead, Mr. Trudeau shuffled some of the less-prominent players in his cabinet last July, bringing in new faces in mostly peripheral roles, without any coherent message about a change in approach.
Replacing Ms. Freeland doesn’t seem like enough of a game-changer now. Liberal support has fallen deeper, the party suffered the shock of losing a safe riding in the Toronto-St. Paul’s by-election, irritation with Mr. Trudeau has spread wide. Ms. Freeland’s style comes across as condescending to some, but that’s a subset of irritations with Trudeau government that are now personified by Mr. Trudeau.
But if Mr. Trudeau and his chief of staff, Katie Telford, huddle to go over the options that Liberals have mooted to turn things around – the Prime Minister resigning, the chief of staff resigning, or the finance minister resigning – door No. 3 might be a popular choice.
It wouldn’t be a simple plan, however. For one thing, if Mr. Carney has balked at joining Mr. Trudeau’s government for years, it seems unlikely that it would be a much more appetizing prospect now, when the government’s popularity has sunk and there have been calls from Liberals for Mr. Trudeau to quit.
Of course, Ms. Freeland could be replaced at finance by another MP in a shuffle. There might be more changes to the team. A year ago, a number of Liberals were hoping Mr. Trudeau and his inner circle would formulate an assertive plan for a reboot. Now there’s just desperation to do something.