China News Service, Toronto, August 18 (Reporter Yu Ruidong) On the day after the former Minister of Finance Bill Monod announced his resignation, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau announced in Ottawa on August 18 that Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was concurrently serving as the finance minister. long. He was also approved by Governor Payette to adjourn Congress.
Freeland's succession as finance minister is generally expected in Canadian media. She also became Canada's first female finance minister.
The Ukrainian-born Freeland was elected to the Canadian House of Representatives in 2013 and has previously worked in several media. After Trudeau led the Liberal Party to win the 2015 election, she entered the cabinet and successively served as Minister of International Trade and Minister of Foreign Affairs. After Trudeau was re-elected in the 2019 general election, she continued to be highly regarded as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. She is also the Canadian leader in the negotiation of the US-Mexico-Canada agreement and served as the chairman of the Cabinet's COVID-19 Response Committee in early March.
In this cabinet reorganization, Trudeau also appointed Dominic LeBlanc, Chairman of the Privy Council, as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, responsible for communication and cooperation between the federal government and provinces and regions. This post was originally held by Freeland. Freeland and LeBron were sworn in at the Governor's Mansion that afternoon.
The Canadian Parliament announced its adjournment on the same day, ending the first session of the current Parliament ahead of schedule.
The adjournment caused all unfinished affairs of Congress to be zeroed out, unpassed bills ceased to exist, and all committees had to suspend their work.
This means that investigations such as Trudeau and others by the House of Representatives Finance Committee around the student service grant project dispute will also be suspended.
Adjourning the meeting is not dissolving Congress. The dissolution of Congress will trigger a general election. During the adjournment, the Speaker, Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers and Parliamentary Secretary can continue to perform their duties.
Congress will resume on September 23. The Liberal Party government will then propose a new governance plan in the context of the new crown epidemic. Trudeau said that the new plan will accept a vote of confidence. But he denied that he was seeking a general election.
Bill Mono, who has served as Minister of Finance in the Trudeau government for nearly five years, announced in Ottawa on the evening of August 17 that he will resign as Finance Minister and Member of Parliament, and said that he will participate in the election for the next Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The Canadian media generally believe that Mono's resignation is related to the turmoil of the Student Service Scholarship Program and the differences between him and Trudeau on economic policies in response to the epidemic.
The Canadian government launched a student service grant program involving more than 900 million Canadian dollars in late June. However, the media disclosed that the project was handed over to the charity "We Charity", a charity organization that had close relationships with Trudeau and Mono's family. This incident triggered widespread criticism of Trudeau and Mono. The Commissioner for Ethics of the Canadian Parliament and the Finance Committee of the House of Representatives launched investigations or inquiries about this. (Finish)