Where does Justin Trudeau go without Chrystia Freeland?

Back in 2018 — after her star turn as the minister who took on Donald Trump — Chrystia Freeland was, in Justin Trudeau's words, "exactly the right person to do what she's doing."

"Quite frankly, there probably isn't a day that goes by where I don't thank my lucky stars for having been able to convince her to leave her great job in New York to run in an uncertain byelection where I couldn't even guarantee she was going to win the nomination, and then come to sit with the third party in the House," Trudeau told me back then.

"Because she was the kind of person I knew Canada needed serving within Parliament and hopefully serving within government."

An acclaimed journalist and author, Freeland was the first star candidate recruited to the Liberal Party by Trudeau and his team in 2013. She became an early proof point for his leadership. And her writing on economic inequality lined up perfectly with the "middle class" message that would be central to the Trudeau Liberals in 2015.

When the first crisis of Trudeau's time in office arrived in November 2016 — the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States — she was elevated to foreign affairs minister and put front and centre in the response.

After a weakened prime minister limped out of the 2019 election, Freeland was elevated to deputy prime minister — the first cabinet minister to hold that title in more than a decade — and was asked to lead the government's outreach to the provinces, including the western provinces that had turned decidedly against Trudeau. 

When the prime minister and his first finance minister, Bill Morneau, began to see things differently in 2020, Freeland was put in charge of fiscal policy and tasked with helping guide the federal government out of a once-in-a-century pandemic; her signature accomplishment became a new child care program. And when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Freeland, the daughter of a Ukrainian mother, fronted one of the Trudeau government's most significant foreign policy efforts on behalf of its ally.

No cabinet minister is ever truly irreplaceable and any number of individuals who have served alongside Trudeau would say that they came to office with impressive resumes and did important things while they were there. But aside from Trudeau himself, no minister has been more central to this government than Freeland. 

As a result, her resignation on Monday morning dealt a shattering blow to Trudeau's government. It will be very hard for the prime minister to put the pieces back together again.

On its own, Freeland's resignation from cabinet — at any time, for whatever reason — would have been a significant loss. But her stunning exit came just hours before she was to deliver the fall economic statement (the second-most important day of the year for a finance minister).

It was conveyed via a stinging public letter to the prime minister. And it landed just a month before the start of another Trump presidency, one already threatening to be even more challenging than the first.

Add all of that up and it suggests the prime minister catastrophically mishandled the minister for whom he once thanked his lucky stars.

It is particularly unfortunate for Trudeau that Freeland is not the first minister to leave on bad terms. Going back to Jody Wilson-Raybould's calamitous exit in 2019, multiple ministers have now departed cabinet and have subsequently aired their grievances with his management — including Freeland's immediate predecessor as finance minister.

Some of that might be put down to Liberal Party culture, or the sorts of accomplished individuals Trudeau recruited and appointed. These are not lifelong partisans or ideologues, the sorts of politicians who might be inclined to swallow their complaints for the sake of the party or the cause.