The Canadian parliament in Ottawa. Picture: stock
Canadian PM Justin Trudeau is facing mounting calls to go after his finance minister quit and continuing trolling from US President-elect Donald Trump.
Chrystia Freeland quit on Monday (local time) as she led a cabinet committee on Canada-US relations, liaising with Canada’s 10 provinces.
She has since been replaced by Dominic LeBlanc.
Trudeau has been wrestling with Trump’s continual threats to impose tariffs on Canadian imports to the US.
A quick visit by the PM to Trump in Florida ended with Trump mocking him online as a state governor and Canada as the 51st state of the US.
In reaction to Freeland’s decision, Trump again called Canada “a great state” and referred to Trudeau as governor.
When Trump took office in 2017, he vowed to tear up a trilateral free trade treaty with Canada and Mexico.
Freeland, who was then Canadian foreign minister, played a large role in renegotiating the pact and saving Canada’s economy, which is heavily reliant on the US.
“As a country we have to project strength and unity. It’s chaos right now up in Ottawa,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford told US Today.
The province and the federal government were trying to formulate a united response to Trump’s threat in an online conference on Monday.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, one of Trudeau’s biggest critics, told US today they had only learned halfway through their call that Freeland had quit.
“It’s not the greatest time to have a vacuum”, she said and called for a national election.
The next election is due to be held by October 20 next year, say media reports.
The conservatives are leading in polls and just won a special election in British Colombia.
“Trump will be inaugurated in 34 days. Canada must have a stable government,” former Trudeau foreign policy advisor Roland Paris wrote in a social media post.
Vincent Rigby, a former national security and intelligence adviser to Trudeau, told US Today that Freeland’s departure meant the Canadian stance with Trump was up in the air.
