​Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a proud man, but it is time for him to take a walk in the snow.

Close to 40 years after his father, Pierre Trudeau, took his proverbial walk in the snow, it is time for Justin Trudeau to do the same thing and resign.

As was also true for his father, Justin, is a very proud man and wants to make the most important decision of his life when he is ready. After nine years in the country’s top job, we owe him this much.

Now that he is in a blizzard of controversy and his leadership is extremely fragile, Justin Trudeau must take Parliament’s holiday break to reflect and then announce that he is leaving.

​The late stages of Pierre Trudeau’s career were much as they are now for Justin. Pierre Trudeau’s closest ally and confidant, Marc Lalonde worried back in 1984 that Pierre no longer had the support of his caucus.      
   
Now, Justin Trudeau has just had his erstwhile strongest supporter and Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland leave his side in a bitter departure that rocked the nation.

The younger Trudeau totally mishandled a key cabinet decision when he told his Deputy PM and Finance Minister, he no longer wanted her in that job. Within a few days Freeland resigned and directed extremely harsh criticism at her boss. She did so in a masterfully crafted letter of resignation as follows:

“Our country today faces a grave challenge. The incoming administration in the United States is pursuing a policy of aggressive economic nationalism, including a threat of 25 per cent tariffs. We need to take that threat extremely seriously. That means keeping our fiscal powder dry so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war…

“That means eschewing costly political gimmicks (such as the planned $250 payment to individuals) which we can ill afford which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment.”
 
Freeland, who has often been criticized for having poor political communications skills, was right on the mark in her resignation. With her letter, Ottawa was thrown into turmoil, and Trudeau has had nothing substantive to say about the matter since the letter was provided to the media on Monday.

A wave of sympathy greeted Ms. Freeland, and she received a standing ovation when she attended this week’s Liberal caucus meeting. In a later letter to supporters, she vowed to continue to represent her Toronto riding of University – Rosedale and hinted at a future run for the Liberal leadership with her concluding statement that “this is not the end of the road.”

For his part, the Leader of the Opposition, Pierre Poilievre, showed incredibly poor judgment in calling for an immediate “Axe the Tax” election, this in the middle of a national crisis over President Elect Donald Trump’s threat of a 25 per cent tariff.

Poilievre has based his whole strategy for becoming Prime Minister on the presence of an unpopular Prime Minister Trudeau, who, Poilievre has said numerous times was responsible for all the ills of the country.

Freeland’s stock among Canadians rose dramatically with her resignation and as Donald Trump has been calling her “totally toxic” and saying she “would not be missed.”

Mr. Trump has totally misinterpreted the impact among Canadians of his remarks about Freeland, and his patronizing approach to Trudeau, referring to him repeatedly as the “governor” of the Canada as the “51st state of the American Union.” Trump probably does not care, but his remarks have galvanized anti-American feeling in Canada. It never makes sense to utter contemptuous remarks about a loyal neighbour “over the fence.”

Apart from Freeland, one of the few federal leaders who has emerged well from this tariff and cabinet relations fiasco, has been New Brunswick’s Dominic LeBlanc who has been a tower of strength in drawing up measures to firm up the Northern Border with the United States. Justin Trudeau has shown his confidence in LeBlanc by appointing him as the new Finance Minister.
Unlike Trudeau who has often been criticized in this space for his “marshmallow” talk, Leblanc is plain spoken and liked by federal politicians and Premiers alike.

As for NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, he has been at sea of late. He has now called on Trudeau to resign, but he is obviously fearful of an early election which could bring a drastic reduction in NDP seats as it would doubtless do for the Liberals as well. Increasingly, Singh lacks credibility in his pronouncements.

Some are now touting both Leblanc and Freeland as future Prime Ministers of the country. Despite Freeland’s strong intellectual capacity and her skills on trade issues, the Against the Flow blog does not view her as a potentially dynamic Prime Minister in the manner of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Having just accepted the position of Minister of Finance, it is difficult to see how LeBlanc could leave that job to contest for the Liberal leadership if there is now a party campaign.

If Justin Trudeau does indeed resign, it is doubtful whether he will be remembered as one of the country’s great Prime Ministers. He lacks a single dominant achievement such Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s decision in 2003 to keep Canada out of the Iraq war, or Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s patriation of Canada’s Constitution in 1982.
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As for Trump, he made a colossal mistake in prodding, once too often, the sleeping giant of Canada.