‘A dumpster fire, wrapped up in a cluster’: Exploring the Turmoil Inside Justin Trudeau’s Ottawa
The prime minister faces mounting pressure to resign, yet he asserts, "I'm focused on work."
TroibNews 
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s week began with a crisis his opponents described as a “gong show at the bottom of a dumpster fire, wrapped up in a cluster.”
Canada's three-term prime minister managed to navigate the week until Friday when he instituted a Cabinet shakeup, partly spurred by the shocking departure of Chrystia Freeland, who stepped down as finance minister and deputy prime minister on Monday.
Trudeau remained mostly isolated in his office throughout the week, making only a few appearances at high-profile holiday gatherings where he maintained a defiant and optimistic tone.
“It is the absolute privilege of my life to serve as your prime minister,” he remarked during a gathering of his top donors on Monday, shortly after an emergency caucus meeting where MPs urged him to resign.
His office canceled end-of-year interviews, and his press team largely sidestepped most media inquiries while Trudeau deliberated on his next steps.
“We have a lot of work to do and that’s what we’re focused on,” he stated after avoiding journalists following a Cabinet meeting later that Friday.
With Parliament not reconvening until January 27 — just days after Donald Trump’s inauguration — Trudeau technically has time to weigh his options; however, the reality is that his time is dwindling.
He could choose to remain in the fight for the next election, anticipated to occur sooner rather than later in 2025. Once MPs return, opposition leader Jagmeet Singh has pledged to introduce a no-confidence vote against the minority government.
While there is no formal procedure for ousting the Liberal leader, Trudeau might announce plans to resign and remain until a new leader is selected, a process that could stretch over several months. Alternatively, he could prorogue Parliament in the new year, effectively suspending it, to grant the government additional time.
He could also fully step aside, appointing an interim Prime Minister, a scenario that would be exceptionally rare.
For over a year, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been convincingly beating Liberals in national polls. With Trump back in the White House and a looming tariff confrontation, he has intensified his calls for an immediate election — a contest he is projected to win decisively.
“Some feminist. The same week as Trudeau was insulting Americans for not electing a woman president, he was busy throwing his own woman deputy prime minister under the bus to replace her with a man,” Poilievre remarked about the “incredible, ridiculous, embarrassing” circumstances. “You can't make this stuff up.”
Outside of meeting areas on Parliament Hill and within Liberal holiday parties, PMG spoke to over a dozen Liberal MPs, staffers, and party members for insight into the turmoil, providing them anonymity to speak candidly.
The chaos unfolded on Monday when Freeland resigned as Canada’s finance minister just hours before she was to present a significant economic plan. One official described Freeland’s departure as dropping an “atomic bomb” on the Prime Minister’s Office.
In her resignation note, Freeland alluded to weeks of friction with Trudeau regarding “costly political gimmicks” — a holiday tax break for Canadians — when she believed that the federal treasury should be concentrating on a possible tariff war.
She took her departure as an opportunity to caution that Ottawa’s approach to Trump “will define us for a generation, and perhaps longer.”
Trudeau had informed Freeland during a Zoom call the previous week about his plans to replace her as finance minister. The party was reportedly courting former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, who has shown interest in the Liberals for the past couple of years. Many expect him to eventually run for the Liberal leadership.
While Trudeau offered Freeland a new role focusing on Canada-U.S. relations, he believed — through text messages — that she was open to accepting it. It was only on Monday, as his motorcade arrived at the Hill, that he learned of her resignation. PMG has not reviewed the texts.
One senior government source informed PMG that Carney “switched up at the last minute,” stating he wouldn’t join the Cabinet without Freeland.
By the moment Trudeau made his way to his office, Freeland had publicly shared her resignation letter on X. Trump celebrated her resignation. A senior government source indicated that during his dinner with Trudeau at Mar-a-Lago, the president-elect expressed disfavor towards Freeland, who had actively participated in renegotiating NAFTA.
From that point until Friday’s Cabinet reshuffle, senior officials within the Government of Canada were improvising their responses.
Live networks broadcasted Trudeau addressing the caucus at an emergency meeting even as his team insisted he was not present. He conveyed to the room that there are “two sides to the story,” yet several lawmakers expressed that he has kept his caucus largely uninformed.
Trudeau has faced mounting pressure since his party suffered a loss in a Toronto stronghold during a special election in June. The Liberals endured two additional losses, including a significant defeat in British Columbia on the same day Freeland resigned.
The Prime Minister’s Office has been attempting to trace media leaks, with staffers expressing uncertainty about whom to trust. There were even moments of visible emotion this week, as Transport Minister Anita Anand appeared notably choked up. In the aftermath of an unusual December Cabinet shuffle, some ministers’ staffers are left questioning their job security after Christmas.
Freeland’s departure has reinvigorated the Liberal MPs who sought to initiate a caucus revolt earlier this fall.
“Finally we’ve got somebody like Chrystia Freeland who has made a major move, and my hope is a lot of Cabinet ministers will start to speak up and say publicly what they all know: The prime minister’s political career is essentially over,” Liberal backbencher Wayne Long expressed to PMG.
Trudeau’s internal struggles, along with unfavorable opinion polls, place him among a global trend of declining incumbents — including U.K. Tory PM Rishi Sunak, France’s Emmanuel Macron, U.S. President Joe Biden, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
At the Liberal Christmas party on Wednesday, the photo line for Freeland drew nearly as much attention as that for the Prime Minister himself. At a subsequent Liberal afterparty, it became the central topic of conversation.
When Trudeau’s new Cabinet was sworn in on Friday, his leading lawmakers urged the party to unite and redirect their frustrations toward a shared opponent: Donald Trump.
Allen M Lee for TROIB News
Canada's three-term prime minister managed to navigate the week until Friday when he instituted a Cabinet shakeup, partly spurred by the shocking departure of Chrystia Freeland, who stepped down as finance minister and deputy prime minister on Monday.
Trudeau remained mostly isolated in his office throughout the week, making only a few appearances at high-profile holiday gatherings where he maintained a defiant and optimistic tone.
“It is the absolute privilege of my life to serve as your prime minister,” he remarked during a gathering of his top donors on Monday, shortly after an emergency caucus meeting where MPs urged him to resign.
His office canceled end-of-year interviews, and his press team largely sidestepped most media inquiries while Trudeau deliberated on his next steps.
“We have a lot of work to do and that’s what we’re focused on,” he stated after avoiding journalists following a Cabinet meeting later that Friday.
With Parliament not reconvening until January 27 — just days after Donald Trump’s inauguration — Trudeau technically has time to weigh his options; however, the reality is that his time is dwindling.
He could choose to remain in the fight for the next election, anticipated to occur sooner rather than later in 2025. Once MPs return, opposition leader Jagmeet Singh has pledged to introduce a no-confidence vote against the minority government.
While there is no formal procedure for ousting the Liberal leader, Trudeau might announce plans to resign and remain until a new leader is selected, a process that could stretch over several months. Alternatively, he could prorogue Parliament in the new year, effectively suspending it, to grant the government additional time.
He could also fully step aside, appointing an interim Prime Minister, a scenario that would be exceptionally rare.
For over a year, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been convincingly beating Liberals in national polls. With Trump back in the White House and a looming tariff confrontation, he has intensified his calls for an immediate election — a contest he is projected to win decisively.
“Some feminist. The same week as Trudeau was insulting Americans for not electing a woman president, he was busy throwing his own woman deputy prime minister under the bus to replace her with a man,” Poilievre remarked about the “incredible, ridiculous, embarrassing” circumstances. “You can't make this stuff up.”
Outside of meeting areas on Parliament Hill and within Liberal holiday parties, PMG spoke to over a dozen Liberal MPs, staffers, and party members for insight into the turmoil, providing them anonymity to speak candidly.
The chaos unfolded on Monday when Freeland resigned as Canada’s finance minister just hours before she was to present a significant economic plan. One official described Freeland’s departure as dropping an “atomic bomb” on the Prime Minister’s Office.
In her resignation note, Freeland alluded to weeks of friction with Trudeau regarding “costly political gimmicks” — a holiday tax break for Canadians — when she believed that the federal treasury should be concentrating on a possible tariff war.
She took her departure as an opportunity to caution that Ottawa’s approach to Trump “will define us for a generation, and perhaps longer.”
Trudeau had informed Freeland during a Zoom call the previous week about his plans to replace her as finance minister. The party was reportedly courting former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, who has shown interest in the Liberals for the past couple of years. Many expect him to eventually run for the Liberal leadership.
While Trudeau offered Freeland a new role focusing on Canada-U.S. relations, he believed — through text messages — that she was open to accepting it. It was only on Monday, as his motorcade arrived at the Hill, that he learned of her resignation. PMG has not reviewed the texts.
One senior government source informed PMG that Carney “switched up at the last minute,” stating he wouldn’t join the Cabinet without Freeland.
By the moment Trudeau made his way to his office, Freeland had publicly shared her resignation letter on X. Trump celebrated her resignation. A senior government source indicated that during his dinner with Trudeau at Mar-a-Lago, the president-elect expressed disfavor towards Freeland, who had actively participated in renegotiating NAFTA.
From that point until Friday’s Cabinet reshuffle, senior officials within the Government of Canada were improvising their responses.
Live networks broadcasted Trudeau addressing the caucus at an emergency meeting even as his team insisted he was not present. He conveyed to the room that there are “two sides to the story,” yet several lawmakers expressed that he has kept his caucus largely uninformed.
Trudeau has faced mounting pressure since his party suffered a loss in a Toronto stronghold during a special election in June. The Liberals endured two additional losses, including a significant defeat in British Columbia on the same day Freeland resigned.
The Prime Minister’s Office has been attempting to trace media leaks, with staffers expressing uncertainty about whom to trust. There were even moments of visible emotion this week, as Transport Minister Anita Anand appeared notably choked up. In the aftermath of an unusual December Cabinet shuffle, some ministers’ staffers are left questioning their job security after Christmas.
Freeland’s departure has reinvigorated the Liberal MPs who sought to initiate a caucus revolt earlier this fall.
“Finally we’ve got somebody like Chrystia Freeland who has made a major move, and my hope is a lot of Cabinet ministers will start to speak up and say publicly what they all know: The prime minister’s political career is essentially over,” Liberal backbencher Wayne Long expressed to PMG.
Trudeau’s internal struggles, along with unfavorable opinion polls, place him among a global trend of declining incumbents — including U.K. Tory PM Rishi Sunak, France’s Emmanuel Macron, U.S. President Joe Biden, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
At the Liberal Christmas party on Wednesday, the photo line for Freeland drew nearly as much attention as that for the Prime Minister himself. At a subsequent Liberal afterparty, it became the central topic of conversation.
When Trudeau’s new Cabinet was sworn in on Friday, his leading lawmakers urged the party to unite and redirect their frustrations toward a shared opponent: Donald Trump.
Allen M Lee for TROIB News
