Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went to Rideau Cottage this morning with a request that Governor General Mary Simon, as the King’s representative, might give her approval to prorogue Parliament till March 24. Once she granted that request, Trudeau gave a short press conference in front of the Governor General’s Residence, explaining the motives for his resignation and reviewed briefly his governmentś accomplishments.
A new Liberal leader will be elected much before March 24, it is hoped. The new party leader will automatically become the Prime Minister; when the prorogued Parliament comes back in session on March 24, the Opposition Parties will impose an early spring general election on the minority Liberal government by threatening to bring down the government if they themselves refuse to call the election. Canada is a rudderless ship of state.
The one priority remains in the eyes of the Trudeau prorogued Cabinet Ministers, especially the 12 (now minus Chrystia Freeland who left the government in a huff a few weeks ago) Cabinet Ministers who recently reconstituted, in the wake of the recent Trump election victory, what was originally created in 2016 to deal with the first Trump Administration: The Ministerial Cabinet Committee for United States Relations.
What will they be able to do about the threat of President-elect Trump to slap 25% trade tariffs on most items entering the U.S. from Canada, if border security issues of drugs and migrants are not resolved to the satisfaction of President Trump on January 20th?
A few of these 12 Cabinet Ministers will soon launch their campaigns to become Party leader and Prime Minister.
The two front runners to replace Trudeau are, first, Mark Carney, the central banker who recently was advising Trudeau on all things financial, but considered an outsider with no baggage in the three Trudeau governments of the last 9 years. The other is Chrystia Freeland, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, who was always #2 to Trudeau from day one, and who is also very close to Poland’s Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski and wife Anne Appelbaum.
Both Carney and Freeland have a Harvard University background and both are the only two Canadians who have a seat on the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum in Davos, which is holding its annual four-day conference this year starting on January 20.
