section_path: Background
section_name: Background
paragraph_text: Background
  
  Chrystia Freeland had been a member of Trudeau's government since he took office in 2015, and served in several key roles. In 2019, she was appointed deputy prime minister, and in 2020, she took the role of finance minister. Her prominence in the Trudeau government, and being tasked with critical files, often led her to being nicknamed the "minister of everything", and she was widely seen as a potential successor to Trudeau for the leadership of the Liberal Party. Freeland was also seen as exceptionally loyal to Trudeau.
  
  Trudeau had, by then, been in power for nine years following his 2015 election victory. Trudeau had been reduced to a minority government in both the 2019 and 2021 elections. A confidence and supply agreement with the opposition NDP helped sustain the minority government from March 2022 until September 2024, when the NDP withdrew from the agreement. Trudeau had headed off a caucus revolt in October 2024 over concerns about his unpopularity amid Canada's cost-of-living crisis and rising Conservative poll numbers.
  
  In the weeks leading up to Freeland's resignation, two other sudden departures from Trudeau's cabinet occurred. On 20 November 2024, Alberta MP Randy Boissonnault resigned from the Cabinet following allegations that he ran a business seeking federal contracts and falsely claimed to be Indigenous. On 15 December 2024, housing minister Sean Fraser announced his intention to leave the cabinet, citing family reasons.