TORONTO – Canada’s finance minister announced his resignation Monday amid reports of disputes with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on government spending to protect the economy from the coronavrius pandemic.
Bill Morneau said he abandoned politics and nominated his call as a candidate to head the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Trudeau thanked Morneau for his five years as finance minister and said in a statement that “Canada will strongly assist his candidacy to lead” the OECD.
Morneau and Trudeau are said to have collided amid spending on the pandemic economy. Morneau stated that he had not been asked to resign, but added that he was no longer the right user for the position.
The Government of Canada forecasts a historic deficit of C$343 billion (US$260 billion) by 2020-2021 as a result of its economic and stimulus plans to address the coVID-19 effect. Trudeau said spending a lifeline for suffering Canadians is staying afloat.
Recent news that Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, pleaded with Trudeau for the pandemic, has fuelled the hypothesis that Morneau could be replaced.
Carney and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland would be nominated as favorites to update Morneau, however, two senior government officials told The Associated Press that Carney is not a possible candidate to update him. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because it was not legal to speak publicly on the subject. One official showed that Carney had been speaking informally with the Prime Minister for some time.
Carney, the first non-British to hold the highest position at the Bank of England at 325.
Opposition parties are in favor of Morneau’s resignation on allegations that he had a clash of interests in a dispute with WE Charity, a scandal that also affected Trudeau.
Trudeau said he recused a cabinet resolution to award a contract to We Charity to manage cash to struggling academics to locate paintings due to the pandemic. The nearly $1 billion program was analyzed after it was revealed that We Charity, an organization for which Trudeau’s circle of relatives painted, had decided to manage it. Trudeau’s wife, brother and mother won a total of Can$300,000 (US$221,000) for speaking at various WE events.
Nelson Wiseman, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, said Morneau’s resignation is not a marvel and noted that he also had a conflict of interest with the charity.
“By firing Morneau, Trudeau hopes to divert attention from himself,” Wiseman said. “Once the government announced that Carney” advising “Trudeau, he indicated that Morneau would soon leave.”
Wiseman stated that Morneau, the sacrificial lamb in the We Charity case.
“I don’t think the exit is the product of political differences, even if the Prime Minister’s Office would like it to appear,” he said. “Morneau’s departure is a direct result of his settlement with the WE charity, with him and his circle of relatives receiving loose trips to Kenya and Ecuador and his daughter’s employment with WE in flagrant violation of the Conflict of Interest Act.”
Morneau has been Trudeau’s finance minister since the prime minister took over in 2015. He is the former director of Canada’s largest human resources company, Morneau Shepell.
Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s former leading secretary, noticed acrimony leaks between Trudeau and Morneau and said in a Twitter message the previous Monday to be shot down.
“Liberals are more lethal to liberals than any other supporter,” Butts tweeted. “Canadians have little patience for this kind of thing at best, and they are. Friendly recommendation for former colleagues: leave it, unless you do not lose.
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