Justin Trudeau is only the second elected prime minister in Canadian history after Jean Chrétien, to be ignominiously pushed out as prime minister by his own party, and this departure is more embarrassing because it follows a bungled attempt to lay all the responsibility for a failed economic policy on Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, turf her out and replace her with a complete new comer to elective office. Chrétien was never taken overly seriously by the Canadian public but was a reasonably competent prime minister with a defensible record. Because the (then) Progressive Conservative Party had been fragmented by the defection of the Bloc Québécois and the Reform party, Chrétien routinely held elections prematurely, since he was sure to win them, as a substitute for doing the necessary to raise his standing in the country and in his party. The fragmentation of the opposition made it effectively a one-party state and the grandees of the Liberal party tired of it and gave Chrétien the order of the boot. Finance Minister Paul Martin had an excellent record and took office with dignity in a spirit of confidence. What we have witnessed in the last few weeks has been an amateurish fiasco.