Canadian Political Flash Crash with Freeland out at Finance
The knives are out. The rats are jumping ship. But is the Trudeau regime really about to fall?
Trump has threatened crippling tariffs. Rate cuts continue as the Canadian dollar is sacrificed to try and save the economy. The annual deficit finally was announced and came in over 50% higher than expected at $61 billion.
All eyes have been back on Canada this week, in one of the most dramatic days politically in decades, as the finance minister abruptly resigned with a letter of accusations against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The knives are out. The rats are jumping ship. Is the Trudeau regime finally sunk?
Canadian Twitter was buzzing Monday amidst speculation of a Christmas snap election.
But, not so fast in my estimation.
For more context on Canada, see the latest deep dive.
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Freeland in Finance is Out
The finance minister, Christia Freeland, had been quietly asked on Friday to accept a demotion to a made up new cabinet post ahead of the Monday publishing of the months-delayed Fall Economic Update.
Instead, she through a grenade in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's plans, publicly resigning by posted letter to her X (formerly Twitter) account shortly after 9am.
After rumblings of tension between the Freeland and Trudeau over the ill-considered GST sales tax holiday and $250 stimulus checks, Freeland highlighted them as "costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment." Surely enough, it looks like neither the tax holiday nor stimulus checks will actually happen despite aggressive political marketing for weeks.
She further highlighted the mounting trade and tariff war with the United States as a more pressing file that seems to lack engagement from the Prime Minister.
The Canadian commentariat class went wild with renewed "sky is falling" claims that finally this would bring down the Trudeau regime.
The victory laps were starting, everyone was choosing their drink of choice to celebrate until the new Conservative administration.
The Minister of Housing, Sean Fraser, whose only qualification for office was being a groomsmen at Trudeau's wedding, also announced his resignation and plan to leave politics after the current term. Another minister who was next in line for the finance portfolio rejected the offer.
Canadian X (formerly Twitter) was having their "The Berlin Wall is Falling" moment.
But, as expected for Trudeau, who seems to have 9 lives with respect to surviving countless legitimate scandals, he found a remaining ally to thrust into the finance portfolio, Dominic LeBlanc.
LeBlanc's face notably also made a splash in recent weeks when he was brought to the kissing of the ring dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago; and also announced that effective immediately hundreds more models of firearms including small .22 guage were now illegal and would be collected, and unbelievably, donated to the Ukraine war effort.
Where are the NDP?
The further left party from Trudeau's Liberals, the New Democratic Party (NDP), has for months been saying that they "tore up the agreement" formalizing their coalition with the Trudeau Liberals which had allowed them to hold power in a minority government since the snap COVID election called in September 2021.
And yet, the NDP has failed to ever vote against the government in a "non-confidence" vote in the House of Commons, thus allowing the government to continue. In a British parliamentary system, if the MPs in the House of Commons can vote against the government then it is considered that they have lost the support of the country and the government is dissolved by the crown and an election called.
The NDP though, are in no shape for a snap election, and thus have continue to vote with the government for every declared confidence motion to prevent the harrowing losses they are predicted to face next time voters go to the ballot box.
Under the leadership of Jagmeet Singh – recently dubbed a Maserati Marxist for his newly discovered car of choice, the party has almost gone bankrupt in numerous domains, most notably financially, and are slated to lose numerous seats to become an even less significant minority player in the Canadian politics.
Singh and many colleagues are mere weeks away from reaching the tenure required full gold plated parliamentarian pensions. Whether the expected desolation in the next election or selfishly trying to wait it out for a bigger pension, there is no incentive currently for Singh to vote against the government before March 2025.
Show me the incentives, I'll show you the outcomes.
Given that Singh has no incentive to force an election sooner, he will continue to make loud noises in press conferences and house speeches but his vote on non-confidence motions is the only thing that matters.
And until he finally turns on Trudeau, the government will stay in power. Very likely this means at least until March 2025, but quite possibly until the next soonest required election slated for October 2025.
To Prorogue, the Ace up Trudeau's Sleeves
Under the parliamentary system, Trudeau even has an ace up his sleeves were Singh to finally turn and look like he would vote non-confidence and take down the government.
The PM could choose to prorogue Parliament, to effectively pause government activities – including non-confidence votes – to provide a "political reset" and cool down period so the House of Commons can return weeks or months later when the headlines and chaos has passed.
And not simply a theoretical unused technique, Trudeau already employed this once in August 2020 when in the middle of the WE Charity scandal, he prorogued for a month to stop member committees investigating preferential treatment of the charity, including their suspect no-bid selection to administer a $912 million grant program, which had in turn paid handsome fees to Trudeau family members to speak at their conferences.
Were Singh to turn and look to vote to bring down the government, Trudeau could prorogue and buy himself a few more weeks or months to let the headlines fade and drain the mob of its ferver.
It worked before, it could very well work again.
Carney Waiting in the Wings
Waiting in the wings though remains former Bank of Canada Governor under Harper, and subsequently Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney.
Deeply involved with numerous globalist initiatives through the years with the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Bilderberg Group, including pushing DEI & ESG policy on corporations, advocacy for drastic climate change measures, and support of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), Carney is in a well paid holding pattern as a Vice-Chairman for ESG at Brookfield Asset Management and on the boards of many other financial firms including on Stripe and Bloomberg.
While there is no viable scenario where Trudeau is re-elected in 2025, the Liberals may not be as doomed if they can manage to swap him out before then. Or as was rumoured, Trudeau had hoped to swap in Carney in Finance with Freeland out but her letter will likely further discourage Carney from tarnishing himself with Trudeau in the short term.
Canada fundamentally is a left leaning country, over 80% would have voted for Biden, and while currently when polled over 60% plan to hold their nose and vote for the Conservatives, a change in Liberal leadership could make for a much closer race.
Carney is a true elite, with an economics education from Harvard, graduate degrees from Oxford, and a long career at Goldman Sachs before switching to work in the federal Department of Finance, and then in 2007 as Governor of the Bank of Canada.
Trudeau has no incentive to leave the stage, and as a theatre kid & former drama teacher enjoying the high life he obviously doesn't want to, it would take a scandal much more significant than what took place this week to cause him to resign.
Upon resignation, the Liberal Party would then choose a new leader, who notably is not limited to already be a sitting Member of Parliament (MP). In this case, it seems like Carney would be the most promising choice given he comes across as serious and competent while still accepting and pushing all the leftist orthodoxy which Trudeau does though far less convincingly.
While Freeland has had her eye on the PM seat for years, it would be fairly surprising if she were to be chosen given her horrendous public opinion numbers stemming from her tyrannical performance during the COVID trucker protests (where she froze bank accounts and threatened to take away children of protesters) and general incompetence on both the finance file (the 2024 deficit finally was announced at $62 billion far beyond the self-imposed limit of $40 billion) and on the world stage at international meetings (often seen walking bear foot in conference rooms with foreign dignitaries present).
All this to say, the Trudeau regime is far from over, despite another wobble this week. It simply adds another case study to the long list of legitimate scandals that have plagued the administration and yet born no punishment from voters.
Right Wing Surge Approaches
Without the incentives changing, there is no likely scenario where an election is called earlier than March 2025, and realistically before October 2025.
With over 60% in current polls – nearly unheard of when a majority government is often formed with 40% support, the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre will sweep to power with a dominant majority government and utterly crushed leftist parties.
One poll even showed the official opposition (the next highest polling party) could be the Bloq Quebecois (nationalist separatist party for Quebec), usually relegated as a minor player between Liberals and NDP with only a few seats in that province.
On the right though, there is quiet rising support for the People's Party of Canada under Maxime Bernier who have consistently boldly staked out much further right positions on every topic from immigration to transgender issues, COVID lockdown & vaccine mandate policy to shrinking the government, dairy cartels to foreign policy.
In a poll on X (formerly Twitter), CEO of alternative media platform Rumble asked between the Conservatives under Poilievre or PPC under Bernier who should lead Canada.
The results were so surprising that they appear to have been subsequently deleted, likely upon pressure from the Conservatives. After 7000 votes, Bernier was at 43% support, Poilievre at 57%.
The right is split, and while the boomers will likely balk at the more familiar to US readers right wing pro-freedom policy platform of the PPC and continue to vote Conservative, the young vote has moved quickly to the right, and may continue past the Conservatives into supporting the PPC.
The PPC failed to win any seats in the past two elections despite polling in the 4-9% range nationally. While they have a platform which would make any libertarian smile, candidate quality has been lacking and PPC has generally failed to make inroads on polling, even as they have blasted open the Overton window on controversial topics like immigration and COVID policy.
While Canadians yearn for freedom, and for drastic changes on almost all policy files, it seems unlikely they will get what they are looking for in the Conservative party.
While Poilievre is the best leader since Harper, he also has endlessly pandered in the new-immigrant flooded Greater Toronto Area for years now, which led him to be even behind Trudeau in finally capitulating on immigration. Trudeau and then Poilievre finally publicly admitted that there was a massive immigration crisis and urgent need to reign back numbers and send most on temporary papers home.
I expect most Canadians will be in for disappointment after the next election if they expect drastic policy reforms unless there is recurring pressure, best from within the House of Commons from some newly elected PPC MPs, providing accountability from the right.
But, as said before, Canadians likely will have many months, even close to a year to mull over their options while the Trudeau regime continues to incompetently rule over them.
At this rate, perhaps Trump will liberate them first.
I'll be back to building wifi-money and landing my next promo at the W2. If you want to do the same and want some private coaching, my DMs are open.
Until next time, Fullstack out.
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