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To understand just how catastrophic this is for Trudeau, you have to understand how his government actually works. He didn鈥檛 lose just another minister in Freeland, he lost one leg of the rickety three-legged stool that actually runs this country.

Canadians could be forgiven for not appreciating the inner-mechanics of the Trudeau regime. Secretive to a fault, it remains a mystery even to many Ottawa insiders.

First off, absolutely everything in the Trudeau government gets presented to cabinet. That isn鈥檛 particularly odd: In Westminster systems, ministers are supposed to review and approve big plans and spending items. But I鈥檓 told the Trudeau government is unusually doctrinaire about putting almost all decisions, big and small, on the cabinet table.

Whenever a minister or their department needs funds to pursue an initiative, be it opening new diplomatic missions in East Asia, or earmarking new money to support data centers, they must present the plan to their cabinet colleagues. Cabinet may ask some probing questions, and occasionally a particular initiative will invite blowback, but the ministers tend to greenlight whatever gets put in front of them.

It鈥檚 an often needless step that slows down the business of a government that has never been nimble. It robs individual ministers of the flexibility they need to take rapid action on their own files. But it鈥檚 also only the first step in the Trudeau approval process.

After cabinet votes to approve something, it gets sent up to what had been, until Monday, the real source of power in this government: Freeland, Trudeau and his chief of staff Katie Telford. There, decisions languish for eons. Deputy ministers may be called to present on the same project two, three, or four times 鈥� as the high council wrings its hands.

When decisions are finally made, the answer is rarely 鈥渘o,鈥� but it isn鈥檛 always 鈥測es,鈥� either. Sometimes expensive endeavours, like military procurement, receive just a slice of the funding needed, making the plans functionally worthless.

Defence Minister Bill Blair, for example, recently announced plans to build a proper military base in the high Arctic, complete with a deep-water port 鈥� something America has been begging Canada to do for ages. It鈥檚 the right move, but there isn鈥檛 a single dollar attached to the plan. (It was expected that some cash would come via the fall economic statement, if we ever see it, but I鈥檓 told it won鈥檛 be nearly enough to actually fund the whole project.)

This is a dysfunctional way to govern, as evidenced by all the dysfunction.

In Ottawa recently, I bumped into a Member of Parliament 鈥� one of the few who had actually signed the letter calling for Trudeau鈥檚 departure. I asked if they were looking forward to the upcoming cabinet shuffle. 鈥淐abinet shuffle?鈥� they remarked. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no cabinet shuffle. There was never a cabinet shuffle,鈥� they said. It was all a ruse to keep backbench MPs in line. Trudeau spent the late summer and early fall calling up MPs to say they were being considered for a cabinet role, but the offers were never actually made and the shuffle never happened. 鈥淲e got played,鈥� the MP said.

A shuffle is unavoidable now. But it also seems to be contingent on Trudeau finally to join his government. Such a move was always a middle finger to the Liberal caucus 鈥� a sign that their skills are so lacking that the government had to hire an outside consultant. Now it looks actively desperate, a pathological attempt to distract the country from the fact that the government has stopped governing by giving them a shiny new bauble.

Plenty of Liberals have ideas on how to get out of this rut. Blair has been pushing hard to get Canada to its two-percent NATO defence spending targets, a move that would earn us accolades from Washington. (A plan, I鈥檓 told, Freeland was cool to.) Others believe now is an ideal time to do something bold: Axe a myriad of federal welfare and social insurance programs and adopt a guaranteed minimum income instead. You need, one MP told me, to do something that surprises people. That forces them to recalibrate their expectations of this slow-moving, exhausted, increasingly-cynical government.

As I keep reminding people who work in this government: You have 10 months left in your mandate. You are governing at a time of unprecedented danger and uncertainty. You have both a democratic mandate and a moral obligation to either govern, to do the necessary things to get Canada back on track, or resign. It鈥檚 a sentiment, of course, nobody can disagree with. But they sigh, they point to the Trudeau/Telford/Freeland triumvirate, and say: What can you do?

Freeland answered that question on Monday: You can resign.