Emrys Graefe is the managing partner of Political Intelligence, a government relations and public affairs firm based in Ottawa
Political communication is both art and science, and love or hate Chrystia Freeland, her letter of resignation from Trudeau’s cabinet is an artfully placed dagger in the ribcage of a Prime Minister no longer loved even by his own inner circle.
What this means for a government Canadians no longer have faith in, the timing of the next election, Trudeau’s leadership of the Liberal party, I’ll leave for the pundits.
I’m a political hack. The written word is my weapon. Today, Chrystia Freeland, earned my respect.
Hours before she was set to deliver the Fall Economic Statement, she took to X to publicly deliver a resignation letter that was an expertly crafted masterpiece of political assassination rarely seen in Canada.
Chrystia Freeland and Justin Trudeau, as she says, are now, “at odds.”
With the threat of American tariffs on Canadians goods she says, “we need to take that threat extremely seriously.” The message is clear: she doesn’t believe Trudeau is taking this seriously enough. As the public, we haven’t seen evidence that Trudeau is up for the job. Now we know there’s not a lot of internal evidence either.
“We need to keep our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war. That means eschewing costly political gimmicks…”
Our former finance minister just can’t stand by the spending that a prime minister, desperate to hang onto power, is forcing into the Fall Economic Statement. To have a finance minister resign over this, outright naming these policies as “costly political gimmicks” is a devastating blow.
Freeland writes of the importance of working with the premiers in “good faith and humility” — the insinuation is that this is not what the prime minister is doing.
Freeland writes of Canadians knowing “when we are working for them, and they equally know when we are focused on ourselves.” It seems Freeland didn’t drink her own party’s kool-aide on things like the GST holiday, something I pointed out recently as a crass political gimmick plainly out of touch with the level of suffering of the average Canadian family.
Freeland writes of the “strenuous effort” to “manage our spending.” But what was the source of the strain? Taken in the context of this letter, I think her biggest fight was with the Prime Minister's Office, and Trudeau himself.
When such a free-spending economic activist as Chrystia Freeland can no longer tolerate the pressure to deploy financial political trickery on us, we know that the government is fully off the rails. Will we see an election called? A leadership race in the Liberal party? I can’t say. But what I do know, is that it is rare to see such a scathing public resignation letter from a minister of the crown.
Chrystia Freeland, for once, has earned the title of Honourable. Who will wield the next dagger?
Emrys Graefe is the managing partner of Political Intelligence, a government relations and public affairs firm based in Ottawa. He has held senior roles in campaigns for Stephen Harper, Doug Ford, Jason Kenney, and Peter MacKay.
