Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will reshuffle his cabinet on Friday, just days after Chrystia Freeland’s shock resignation as finance minister, Global News has learned.
Trudeau will gather his new cabinet members at Rideau Hall on Friday morning to be sworn into their new positions, two sources say.
Global News has learned that Ottawa-area MP David McGuinty, brother of former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, will be sworn in as the new public safety minister. He will replace Dominic LeBlanc, who was appointed by Trudeau as the new finance minister and also heads intergovernmental affairs.
Toronto-area MP Nate Erskine-Smith, who has said he does not plan to run again, will be the new housing minister, according to three sources.
Former Housing Minister Sean Fraser announced he was leaving cabinet moments before Freeland resigned on Monday.
Freeland’s announcement, which plunged Trudeau’s government into chaos and called into question his leadership, came after several other cabinet ministers resigned from their positions this year or announced they do not plan to run in the next election.
Several ministers are currently doubling down and running multiple departments on their own after previous ministers quit or were kicked out of cabinet.
Trudeau also faces regional representation challenges at the cabinet table. The only members from Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Alberta (Fraser, Dan Vandal and Randy Boissonnault, respectively) are gone.
Although Trudeau has options to replace Fraser and Vandal in their provinces, the only other Liberal MP in Alberta, George Chahal, expressed support in October for a secret Liberal caucus vote on whether Trudeau should remain as leader or resign.
His comments came as dozens of Liberal MPs privately called on Trudeau to leave amid persistently low support in opinion polls. Several of those same MPs went public with their feelings this week after Freeland’s resignation.
The new ministers will have to get up to speed quickly: January 20 is when US President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in, and the House of Commons returns on January 27.
Trump has threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian imports, which had taken over the Cabinet before the departure of Freeland, co-chairman of the U.S. relations committee with LeBlanc and a prominent contact with U.S. prime ministers and officials.
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Public safety will be a key role as Trump’s threat is based on demands for improvements to border security and crackdowns on drug trafficking.
Freeland’s resignation has put Trudeau on shaky political ground, with a growing number of Liberal MPs saying the prime minister should resign and opposition parties calling for an early election.
Asked during a news conference in Dorchester, N.B., on Thursday if Trudeau has the confidence of his current cabinet, LeBlanc simply replied: “Yes.” He also refused to consider replacing the prime minister as leader of the Liberal Party, should Trudeau resign.
“If the prime minister has the full support of his cabinet, why should we contemplate what will happen after he decides to leave?” -LeBlanc asked.
Trudeau has been forced to make several smaller “mini-changes” to his cabinet this year to fill vacancies.
Boissonnault left his post as employment minister in November after months of controversy surrounding his former medical supplies business and shifting claims of indigenous ancestry.
Vandal, who served as Northern Affairs minister, was one of four cabinet members who informed Trudeau in October that they would not stand for re-election. The others were Filomena Tassi, who was economic development minister for southern Ontario; Marie-Claude Bibeau, who headed national income; and Carla Qualtrough, who left the position of Sports Minister.
Pablo Rodríguez, who held multiple cabinet positions under Trudeau, most recently as transportation minister, said in September he would resign to run for the leadership of the Quebec Liberals.
Another former cabinet member, Seamus O’Regan, announced his resignation as Labor minister in July.
Seven more members of the Liberal group have left Parliament entirely, including former cabinet ministers Carolyn Bennett, David Lametti and Marc Garneau.
The departures of Bennett and Lametti led to by-elections for their respective Toronto- and Montreal-area constituencies that the Liberals lost after holding them for decades, further darkening the Liberals’ prospects for the next election.
The Liberals lost another seat Tuesday in a byelection in Metro Vancouver, and the Conservatives easily regained the seat they narrowly lost in 2021.
—With files from David Akin of Global and the Canadian Press
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
