{"id":4561,"date":"2020-08-18T21:17:40","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T14:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/illume-emag.com\/?p=4561"},"modified":"2020-08-18T21:18:10","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T14:18:10","slug":"canada-finance-minister-resigns-amid-friction-trudeau-charity-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/canada-finance-minister-resigns-amid-friction-trudeau-charity-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada finance minister resigns amid friction with Trudeau and charity scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA — Canada\u2019s finance minister resigned on Monday amid friction with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over spending policies and after coming under fire for his ties to a charity tapped to run a student grant program.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Canada’s Minister of Finance Bill Morneau answers a question about the Economic and Fiscal Snapshot in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada July 8, 2020. Photo: Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n

Bill Morneau said he would not run for parliament again and would instead seek to become the next secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).<\/p>\n

Just last week, Trudeau had expressed confidence in his finance minister as rumors swirled of a rift between the two men. Morneau, 57, has been in the job since Trudeau\u2019s Liberals took power in 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis morning I went to the prime minister and I tendered my resignation,\u201d Morneau told reporters at a hastily arranged news conference on Monday evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s appropriate that the prime minister find someone with a longer term approach for the role, since I\u2019m not running for office,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Morneau\u2019s Toronto seat, a mix of low-income flats and million dollar homes that the party has held since 1993, is unlikely to be at risk for the Liberals, who have a minority government.<\/p>\n

One front-runner to replace Morneau is Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, a close Trudeau ally, who has held several high-profile cabinet roles.<\/p>\n

Morneau and his team have pushed back against other cabinet ministers about how much pandemic funding was needed, including to what extent the post-lockdown recovery could be helped by investing in environmental projects, sources told\u00a0Reuters<\/em>\u00a0on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Trudeau, who campaigned on a platform to tackle climate change, believes the 2021 budget should have an ambitious environmental element to start weaning the heavily oil-dependent economy off fossil fuels and he recently hired former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney as an informal adviser, aides say.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s budget deficit is forecast to hit C$343.2 billion ($253.4 billion), the largest shortfall since World War Two, this fiscal year. Total coronavirus support is nearly 14% of gross domestic product.<\/p>\n

BMO Chief Economist Doug Porter said a policy shift was unlikely under Morneau\u2019s replacement given that \u201cfiscal policy has been already pretty much running at full throttle\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been the widespread perception that, ultimately, the policy thrust was being driven by the PM\u2019s office,\u201d he wrote in a research note.<\/p>\n

‘Consumed by scandal’<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Canadian dollar showed little reaction to the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a little bit of a sell-the-rumour type weakness in the lead up to the resignation,\u201d said Ray Attrill, head of forex strategy at National Australia Bank in Sydney. \u201cThere doesn\u2019t seem to be any suggestion at this stage that this any broader implications for the Canadian government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other possible replacements for the key post include Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne and President of Canada\u2019s Treasury Board Jean-Yves Duclos.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Trudeau thanked Morneau for his service over the past five years and said he would \u201cvigorously support\u201d Morneau\u2019s bid to head the OECD.<\/p>\n

OECD nominations are due by October. The United States plans to nominate deputy White House chief of staff Christopher Liddell for the secretary general job, a senior U.S. official said last month.<\/p>\n

Adding to Morneau\u2019s challenges, several cabinet members were upset when he disclosed he had forgotten to repay travel expenses covered for him by a charity at the heart of an ethics probe. Morneau and Trudeau are both facing ethics inquiries related to the charity.<\/p>\n

Morneau\u2019s resignation \u201cis further proof of a government in chaos,\u201d Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer said on Twitter, adding the \u201cgovernment is so consumed by scandal that Trudeau has amputated his right hand to try and save himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The clash reflected concerns among business leaders that Ottawa had little apparent interest in the economy, sources told\u00a0Reuters.<\/em><\/p>\n

Business and analysts have also fretted about Ottawa becoming distracted by the discord as it tackles the coronavirus crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI doubt you\u2019ll be seeing other finance ministers around the world step down at this time of elevated economic and fiscal uncertainty,\u201d said David Rosenberg, chief economist at Rosenberg Research & Associates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a boxer being forced to take his gloves off in the fifth round.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA — Canada\u2019s finance minister resigned on Monday amid friction with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over spending policies and after coming under fire for his ties to a charity tapped to run a student grant program. Canada’s Minister of Finance Bill Morneau answers a question about the Economic and Fiscal Snapshot in the House of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[761],"tags":[2458,2460],"class_list":{"0":"post-4561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrity-buzz","8":"tag-canadas-minister-of-finance-bill-morneau","9":"tag-economic"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}