CANADIAN FUTURE PARTY: Some are calling for an election in the midst of this chaos. That is the last thing we need

Canadian Future Party leader Dominic Cardy today called for a unity government to guide Canada through the unprecedented threats the country is facing both internally and externally.

“We have never before seen the chaos we are seeing in Ottawa today,” said Cardy. “This comes at a time when we are facing what is likely the most serious economic threat in our history from the proposed punitive tariffs by President-Elect Donald Trump.

At the same time, we continue to face a global economic crisis and essentially a global war between the forces of democracy and the forces of autocracy.”

On the day she was supposed to present the Fall Economic Update, Canada’s Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland resigned, stating she no longer had confidence in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or his government’s fiscal policy. Simultaneously, Sean Fraser, considered one of the few effective ministers in this government, also stepped down.

Some are calling for an election in the midst of this chaos. That is the last thing we need, said Cardy.

“Ms. Freeland herself called for Canada’s government and provincial and territorial leaders to work together to push back on the serious threat coming from Trump’s proposed 25 per cent tariffs,” he said.

“We need to go a step further. We need a unity federal government to fight the pending trade battle with the US and to continue guiding us through the Ukraine war and economic turbulence.”

So far, Mr. Trudeau has put the interests of himself and his party above the interests of Canada. He has also, as Ms. Freeland pointed out in devastating fashion, introduced harmful fiscal policies in a vain hope of buying votes. He should have resigned some time ago, but, again, his interests trumped Canada’s.

Now he’s not even considering the interests of his party.

He must go. We are in too serious a moment to be led by someone who has lost the confidence of Canadians and now even seems to have lost the confidence of a significant part of his cabinet and caucus.

But it absolutely would not be in the interests of Canada to go into an election now. That would be piling chaos onto chaos, fighting an out-of-control fire by pouring gasoline on it. Other parties may perceive it to be in their interest, but that would simply be mimicking Trudeau and putting their interests over Canada’s.

Rather, this is the moment for those elected to represent Canadians to stand up and represent Canadians. All elected parties in the House of Commons need to put their partisan interests aside and support Canada. And all should be included, temporarily, in a government to get us through this crisis.

Canada has responded to crisis by presenting a united front before. In WWI, Sir Robert Borden led a Union government that combined Conservative and most Liberal MPs. The United Kingdom did it in WWII under Winston Churchill.

More recently, the New Brunswick PC government, following the

provincial COVID plan written by our leader Dominic Cardy, formed an all party committee to manage the COVID outbreak. In the early days of that crisis, New Brunswick was widely praised for its response.

We need to get through this moment. There will be time to return to partisan fighting – and infighting – soon enough.                                  
Now is not that moment.

Canadian Future Party leader Dominic Cardy