The Zoom call and the sharply worded letter from Chrystia Freeland that sent shock waves through Ottawa

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Last Friday, Chrystia Freeland was in Toronto, soon to headline a news conference to set up Monday’s update on the nation’s books and the path forward. Meanwhile in Vancouver, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was preparing to give a speech to name a new warship.

But before either walked out the door for what on paper looked like a garden variety political day, they met over Zoom. What happened next would light the fuse of the bomb dropped on Ottawa by Ms. Freeland on Monday morning: her resignation from cabinet as deputy prime minister and finance minister.

Mr. Trudeau, in a call that a source told The Globe and Mail lasted an hour, told her that after she delivered the fall economic statement, he wanted to take the finance portfolio away from her in exchange for a job overseeing U.S. relations. It would come with no staff, no money and no authority.

No thanks, Ms. Freeland responded.

Whether Mr. Trudeau realized there might be consequences to her rejection wasn’t apparent. It had been noted by her team he’d failed to defend her in the House of Commons, after the Globe and Mail reported on tensions between their two offices.

Not long after their Zoom call, she went before reporters who grilled her about those tensions. She called herself proud and grateful to serve in his cabinet, adding she doesn’t spend a lot of time focusing on Ottawa gossip.

One piece, though, did catch her inner circle’s eye over the weekend: the Prime Minister’s chief of staff posting a photo of herself on a holiday jaunt to New York. The timing of the trip and the jubilance of the caption hit a sour note in the wake of the week that the Freeland team had been through.

On Monday morning, Ms. Freeland made a call of her own to Mr. Trudeau. He was readying himself for a cabinet meeting, where boxes of the economic update had been trucked for a read-through before Ms. Freeland was to rise in the Commons and deliver it publicly at 4 p.m.

She was quitting, she told him.

And then she told the world, too, in a sharply worded letter posted online confirming the tension, especially in the wake of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump 25-per-cent tariff threat.

Ms. Freeland wanted to chart one course for the nation’s finances in response, and suggested in her letter that Mr. Trudeau wanted another.

“That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment,” she wrote.

Reporters awaiting was what supposed to be the big political news of the day Monday – the Housing Minister Sean Fraser’s decision not to run again – sucked air in through their teeth as her letter landed.

Mr. Fraser, fresh off an emotional declaration that the needs of his young family needed to take priority over the hustle and bustle in Ottawa, had barely caught his own breath before he was asked for his reaction to news he had yet to hear.

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Meanwhile, scores of lobbyists, economists and civil servants looked at the nearly minute-by-minute agendas for the planned daylong briefing on the fall economic statement and discovered those plans were useless.

The question of whether there would even be an update hung in the air as the buses hired to ferry people to the various lock-up locations simply idled at the curb. The boxes brought into the cabinet room were brought out again, to where, no one would say. The ones at the lockup were covered by a blanket.

The daylong lockup dwindled down to a matter of hours, the normal hoopla of a big speech was ultimately ditched for a dispassionate tabling of the required documents by House Leader Karina Gould.

Staff from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s office, desperate for any political intelligence they could hoover up, scurried from floor to floor, eavesdropping on reporters chatting with Liberal MPs in corners or bellowing out questions about their faith in Mr. Trudeau as they arrived for cabinet.

“Do you have confidence in the Prime Minister?” Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Gary Anandasangaree, among others, was asked.

“Yes, I do,” he said. But neither he nor so many others would answer why.

Nor could NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh answer whether he’d still vote to prop up the minority Liberals, even as he called for the Prime Minister himself to resign – a call he carried over into Question Period, earning him jeers from the Conservative benches.

The shock waves from Ms. Freeland’s bomb even reached construction workers toiling away at the restoration of Centre Block, who were overheard parsing over whether Mr. Trudeau himself was next as they took a break from their jobs.

And the anti-Trudeau protesters, whose numbers had dwindled to a singular hanger-on, if that, in recent weeks, suddenly reappeared in force – their profanity-laden flags twisting in a wet winter wind as night fell on Ottawa.

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A 10-minute drive away, long-time Liberal cabinet member Dominic LeBlanc was sworn in as Finance Minister, on top of his existing roles in public safety and intergovernmental relations. Mr. Trudeau offered him the job that afternoon, he told reporters.

Then back to Parliament Hill for Mr. Trudeau and a 5 p.m. hastily convened meeting with his Liberal MPs, who expressed confusion and anger at the situation throughout the day. During and after the caucus meeting, some MPs said they still supported him, but others said he had to go.

From Mr. Trudeau, publicly at least, came only an acknowledgment that it had been a tough day.

“I trust Canadians,” he said during a speech to a party filled with big Liberal donors. “There is no place I’d rather be than Canada, and it is the absolute privilege of my life to serve as your Prime Minister.”

The House of Commons is set to rise on Tuesday for the holidays.

With files from Robert Fife and Marieke Walsh