PMO’s leaks targeting Freeland evoke purge of Bill Morneau

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OTTAWA — For political staffers who worked for former finance minister Bill Morneau when he resigned in 2020, Thursday morning must have felt like Groundhog Day.

“Tension rises between Freeland, PMO over economic messaging, low approval ratings,” read a Globe and Mail headline splashed over the newspaper’s website Thursday.

The story quoted unidentified Liberal sources stating that the relationship between the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is “tense” because she has been “ineffective” at selling the Liberals’ economic policies. In a statement, PMO spokesperson Ann-Clara Vaillancourt said the Globe’s assertions “are not accurate.”

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On Parliament Hill, on social media and in private messages and political chatrooms, many highlighted the uncanny resemblance between that headline and article to one, by the same reporter, published nearly four years ago in August 2020: “Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s job could be in jeopardy after clashes with Prime Minister, sources say.”
That story created a ripple effect leading to Morneau’s resignation just days later, as finance minister and Liberal MP.

“The leaks and planted stories had poisoned the atmosphere to the point where there were few, if any, alternatives available beyond submitting my resignation,” Morneau wrote in his 2023 book Where To From Here.

In an interview, Morneau’s former deputy chief of staff Sharan Kaur said that what she saw in the article Thursday morning was the beginning of the same “playbook” that led to her ex-boss’s frustrated resignation four years ago.

“This is exactly what happened before. It’s just very unprofessional,” she said. “The real issue is that the PM is polling at an all-time low, his popularity is low” and he isn’t changing things “top to bottom” at the Prime Minister’s Office, she added.
The question is whether the prime minister’s inner circle is moving against Freeland the way it did against Morneau.

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As they say in financial circles, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

What happened to Morneau, who at the time was dealing with an ethics scandal related to WE Charity on top of disagreements with the PMO on spending policies, may have no link to today.

But if media leaks by senior Liberals knifing a sitting finance minister are the common denominator, history may be beginning to repeat itself.

With that in mind, it can be worth revisiting what occurred between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the PMO and Morneau in the weeks leading up to the latter’s sudden resignation, largely from the Morneau camp’s perspective.

In Morneau’s own words, his resignation was linked to “actions,” or media leaks, by PMO staffers.

The summer of 2020 was tumultuous for the Trudeau government and Morneau for several reasons. The COVID-19 pandemic was wreaking havoc on the health-care system and the economy, and the government was spending unprecedented amounts of money through various emergency benefits.

On top of that, Trudeau and Morneau were facing serious conflict-of-interest accusations regarding their ties with WE Charity, which was chosen to administer a $900-million pandemic-related summer jobs grant program.

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By mid-summer, the pressure on Morneau was at its highest when he revealed that he had only recently reimbursed $41,000 worth of travel offered years previous by WE Charity for his family, and had subsequently been involved in the decision to award WE Charity the multi-million-dollar, sole-sourced summer jobs contract.

At the same time, a series of leaks to various media outlets painted an increasingly bleak picture of the relationship between Trudeau and Morneau, partly due to disagreements on how much the government should be spending on COVID benefits.

Trudeau and his office wanted more supports while Morneau was wary of spending too much, Kaur said.

In his book, Morneau pointed to a few stories that particularly stung. One, from the Reuters news service, said the PMO found Morneau “stingy about the cost of pandemic recovery plans” and “reluctant to invest in green initiatives”.

Another, in the Globe and Mail, cited “another source criticizing my overly conservative approach to COVID-19 relief measures.” Bloomberg revealed Trudeau was taking economic advice from Mark Carney, the former central bank governor who was then already a potential contender for the finance minister job.

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While the anonymous criticisms flowed in early August, Trudeau was vacationing with his family in Georgian Bay, Ont. Kaur says the leaks so piqued Morneau that he contacted the PMO demanding to speak to Trudeau, and the two eventually spoke on the phone.

Kaur said Morneau told Trudeau that the leaks were “unacceptable” and demanded the PM “get his house in order.”

“He (Trudeau) replied that he was not aware of the leaks, and he had no idea where they had come from,” Morneau wrote incredulously in his book. “He had always been respectful toward me, so I was pretty sure this was not a malevolent attempt to exit his most senior minister, but a question of his control over the PMO.”

Shortly after that conversation, the PMO published an extraordinary statement of support on Aug. 11 saying Trudeau had “full confidence” in his finance minister.

But that didn’t stop the leaks and media stories detailing the strife between the PMO and the finance minister. Kaur said Morneau decided a few days later that he would resign because the situation “wasn’t sustainable,” and scheduled a meeting with Trudeau on Aug. 17.

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Morneau’s book begins with that meeting at Rideau Cottage, where Trudeau lives. In a conversation that lasted 20 to 30 minutes, Morneau said it was immediately obvious that there was no path for him to stay on with the Liberals.

“I began by explaining to the prime minister that the leaks from his office about me and my ministry had become intolerable,” Morneau recalled in his book, noting they had also increased in “number and degree of malice.”

Kaur, Morneau’s former deputy chief of staff, noted a key difference between the leaks about Morneau in 2020 and this week’s story about Freeland.

The complaints about Morneau were largely focused on his unwillingness to spend as much as the PMO wanted (coupled with the ethics issues tied to the WE Charity scandal). Today, the PMO’s dissatisfaction with Freeland is reportedly over her failures to communicate and convince Canadians to support the Liberals’ economic plans.

Speaking to reporters during a NATO summit Thursday, Trudeau said he had “full confidence” in Freeland’s abilities and “on the work we’re going to be doing together.”

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He did not specify in which capacity.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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