By Miracle Ogunde
Following disagreement with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over US President-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats, Canadia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland has resigned from government.
According to reports, Freeland, in her resignation letter on Monday, said pointed to Trump’s planned 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports as the reason for her quitting the government.
Freeland also stepped down as finance minister, and her resignation marked the first open dissent against Prime Minister Trudeau from within his cabinet and may threaten his hold on power.
Her letter reads, “Our country today faces a grave challenge,”
“For the past number of weeks, you and I have found ourselves at odds about the best path forward for Canada.”
Also, she said Trudeau wanted to shuffle her to another job, to which she replied: “I have concluded that the only honest and viable path is for me to resign from the cabinet.”
Freeland, a former journalist was first elected to parliament in 2013, and joined Trudeau’s cabinet two years later when the Liberals swept to power, holding key posts including trade and foreign minister, and leading free trade negotiations with the EU and the United States.
It was gathered that, she had recently been tasked with helping lead Canada’s response to moves by the incoming Trump administration.
Canada’s main trading partner is the United States, with 75 percent of its exports each year going to its southern neighbor.
As finance minister, she explained the need to take Trump’s tariffs threats “extremely seriously.”
Warning that it could lead to a “tariff war” with the United States, she said Ottawa must keep its “fiscal powder dry.”
“That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford,” she said in an apparent rebuke of a recent sales tax holiday that critics said was costly and aimed at bolstering the ruling Liberals’ sagging political fortunes.
Freeland’s departure comes on the same day she was scheduled to provide an update on the nation’s finances, amid reports the government would blow past Freeland’s deficit projections in the spring.
Freeland, however, said she would run in the next election, expected in 2025.
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