Chrystia Freeland will become Canada’s new finance minister, the first woman to take on the powerful role, CBC News has confirmed.
Freeland, former foreign affairs minister, is now deputy prime minister and intergovernmental affairs minister. Her appointment to the finance post was first reported by CTV News.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will make small adjustments to his cabinet today after Bill Morneau stepped down late Monday. Dominic LeBlanc will take over as intergovernmental affairs minister, CBC News has learned.
The ceremony will take place at Rideau Hall this afternoon and Trudeau is expected to make remarks afterward. CBC News will have special coverage at 2 p.m. ET on cbcnews.ca and CBC News Network.
Morneau resigned as finance minister and also as the MP for Toronto Centre on Monday, after meeting with Trudeau.
Morneau said he did not plan to run in more than two election cycles and that it is the best time to let a fresh minister steer Canada through its post-pandemic economic recovery.
Both Morneau and Trudeau are being investigated by Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion after the Liberal government gave WE Charity a $43.53-million contract to administer a $900-million student grant program despite both their families having close ties to the charity.
Scandal ‘brought Mr. Morneau down,’ Poilievre says
Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre said playing “musical chairs” with the cabinet will not allow the Liberals to overcome the government’s failures.
There have been media reports that Morneau and Trudeau were at odds over policy options, but Poilievre rejected that claim as “fiction.”
“We all know it was scandal that brought Mr. Morneau down,” he said. “In fact, we now have a government of corruption, coverup and chaos at a time of a deadly pandemic and the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression,” he said.
WATCH | Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre comments on Chrystia Freeland becoming finance minister:
Asked repeatedly if the Conservatives would try to trigger an election, Poilievre said his party would use its “strength in numbers” to uncover the truth and to hold the government to account.
“At some point in the future that decision will have to be made,” he said.
Poilievre said Morneau is a “boy scout” compared to Trudeau’s ethics breaches, and said the prime minister should resign.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet has said he will try to trigger a fall election if the prime minister, his chief of staff and the finance minister didn’t resign.
Today, he accused Trudeau of throwing Morneau under the bus.
“[Trudeau] wants to be superman going into the phone booth to change his uniform, but there’s no real change in the prime minister’s behaviour,” he said.
WATCH / NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh on Morneau’s departure
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh agreed that Morneau is a scapegoat and that his resignation does not change the channel on the ongoing controversies.
“This is a government that is working, that was fighting itself, that has been working for the betterment of their own, themselves as Liberals and their close friends and that means Canadians are hurting and Canadians hurting is something that keeps me up at night,” he said.
“Right now, we’ve got Canadians that are worried just in a couple weeks that they’re going to lose their CERB and now they see the finance minister resigning and they see a Liberal government that’s more interested in themselves and scandals than actually helping the people that need help.”
