Freeland was a continuation of the utopian virtue-signalling of a Trudeau era that was less rigorous about results

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Chrystia Freeland’s exit from cabinet, while not expected, is no great surprise.

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The job of transport minister is unglamorous, dominated by regulation of railway rolling stock and of passenger bills of rights. The minister’s path is potholed with potentially career-limiting port, railway or airline strikes.

Former Conservative transport minister John Crosbie expressed his frustration in 1986 when he said no one understands how air fares work. “Why I should be expected to understand them is beyond me,” he said.

For someone with Freeland’s vaulting ambition, being parked in the backwater of transport, albeit with the additional nominal responsibility for internal trade, must have felt like those aspirations were being thwarted.

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She said in a social media post Tuesday she does not intend to run in the next election and that the time is right to seek fresh challenges. Quite why she didn’t make that decision before the last election suggests she thought Prime Minister Mark Carney would restore her to former glories, before she sparked the coup that made Justin Trudeau’s position untenable last December,