After Chrystia Freeland resigns, Dominic LeBlanc named finance ...

Just hours after Chrystia Freeland resigned from cabinet, long-time Liberal cabinet member Dominic LeBlanc has added the finance portfolio to his responsibilities.

LeBlanc, who has served in cabinet since 2015, was sworn in at Rideau Hall to the role on Monday, becoming minister of finance and intergovernmental affairs. He will also remain as minister of public safety.

LeBlanc called being named to the role an honour, and said the “number one” priority for government needed to be cost of living.

“Canadian families, Canadians across the country are feeling the pressure of the cost of living increases, they want the government to remain focused on those issues,” he said.

Earlier on Monday, Freeland advised Trudeau in a letter that she would step down from her role in the cabinet. She wrote that the only “honest and viable path” was for her to resign after she said Trudeau advised her he no longer wanted her to serve as finance minister.

Her resignation set off a wave of calls for Trudeau to resign, including from NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh who said the prime minister “has to go,” and some Liberal MPs as well.

Asked about these calls and how the government would be able to push its agenda forward, LeBlanc pointed to recent motions of confidence that the Liberals survived last week.

“The government continues to focus on the work that Canadians want us to focus on,” LeBlanc said.

LeBlanc said he was asked Monday afternoon to assume the finance role, as well as assume the role of chair of the Canada-U.S. cabinet committee, which Freeland had originally held, and “to remain very focused on border security.”

Freeland’s resignation also came the day she was expected to deliver the fall economic statement.

Department of Finance officials originally said just after 1:30 p.m. Eastern that the statement was still being delivered as expected at 4 p.m. Government House Leader Karina Gould tabled the fiscal update shortly after that time.

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Freeland, in her letter, went on to say she had found herself increasingly “at odds” with Trudeau in recent weeks.

That included over recent financial decisions, saying the tariff threat from the incoming administration of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump meant the country needed to keep “our fiscal powder dry.”

LeBlanc was asked how Freeland’s resignation and calls for Trudeau to step down could impact how the federal government works with the Trump administration and noted he was at the dinner at Mar-a-Lago in which the two countries’ leaders met. He said he saw two leaders focused on a number of priorities both between the two countries and globally.

“We need to be extreme focused on the challenges that the incoming American administration will pose with respects to the potential imposition of tariffs,” LeBlanc said.

Freeland has been a cabinet minister since 2015 when the Liberals formed government, serving briefly as international trade minister before taking on the foreign affairs role where she was part of the team negotiating the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).

When the party won re-election in 2019 but as a minority government, she was named deputy prime minister and became Canada’s first female federal finance minister in 2020 after Bill Morneau resigned from the job.

The resignation of the Toronto Centre MP has led to calls by various party leaders for Trudeau to resign, with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh saying the prime minister “has to go.”

—with files from Global News’ Katie Dangerfield and Uday Rana

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