EDITORIAL: Crying in cabinet? That’s just bananas

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Former finance minister Chrystia Freeland’s new book spills the beans on her old boss, Justin Trudeau. In doing so, she confirms the suspicions many already held about the former prime minister: He’s petty and hypocritical. While he publicly espouses a woke concern for people’s feelings, facial tissues were mandatory at cabinet meetings, as they often ended in tears. And Trudeau wasn’t the one doing the crying.

While the title of her book, Unreliable Boyfriend: An Insider’s View of Dealing With a Chaotic Superpower, Plutocrats, and Other Complicated People, refers to the Trudeau government’s relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, it could just as easily refer to Freeland’s relationship with Trudeau.

She relates how one cabinet minister was scolded for using the word “crazy.” He reportedly said the word was a “derogatory adjective” and “insulting to people with mental health issues.” Instead, he instructed colleagues to use the word “bananas.”

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That seems a tad hypocritical for someone who was found to have appeared at least twice in blackface, in one instance apparently stuffing a banana down his pants and singing the Banana Boat Song. Crazy is as crazy does.

“I think what troubled me the most about the crying in cabinet and the lectures about word choice was that it sometimes went along with what seemed like bullying,” she wrote.

Freeland goes on to describe Trudeau’s disastrous forays into international relations. She describes his 2018 state visit to India, where he and his family looked foolish as they donned traditional Indian costumes while local officials accompanying them to events wore Western garb. And a Canadian of Indian descent, who’d been convicted of attempted murder of an Indian cabinet minister, showed up at an official event.

Freeland’s political relationship with Trudeau came to a crashing end when he told her, via Zoom, of his intention to fire her. She’d heard rumours that Trudeau was courting Mark Carney for the finance job. Determined to take control, Freeland resigned — just hours before she was due to deliver a fall economic statement.

“The Zoom call with Trudeau had taught me that I simply couldn’t trust the PM — and that he decided not to trust me.”

What this political odd couple shared was ambition so ruthless it would make Machiavelli blush. They deserved each other. Our country deserved better.