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Former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland’s new book, Unreliable Boyfriend: An Insider’s View of Dealing with a Chaotic Superpower, Plutocrats, and Other Complicated People, will come out on Oct. 13.
The book, which will be published by Simon & Schuster Canada, draws on Freeland’s own experiences as a journalist turned federal politician to examine the current state of power, diplomacy and Canada-U.S. relations.
The title is a reference to a comment she made on Real Time With Bill Maher in February, saying that the U.S. is “not a very reliable boyfriend right now.”
“This is a book about power, democracy and the choices countries make when the old rules no longer seem to apply,” said Freeland in a press statement.
“As a Canadian negotiating with the United States during years of extraordinary political turbulence, I had a front-row seat to historic change. I wanted to tell the story of what I saw — and what it means for the future.”
In Unreliable Boyfriend, Freeland combines reporting, memoir and analysis to discuss America’s shifting role in global politics.
“Few voices are better positioned than Chrystia Freeland’s to illuminate the challenges facing liberal democracy and Canada’s evolving relationship with the United States,” said Nicole Winstanley, publisher and president of Simon & Schuster Canada, in a press statement.
“Unreliable Boyfriend is an essential, timely work and we are thrilled to bring it to readers at this pivotal moment.”
The Power Panel discusses Chrystia Freeland’s decision to step down from cabinet to become Canada’s new special representative for the reconstruction of Ukraine and the politics around Freeland’s move in a minority government.
Jonathan Karp, who edited the book, says Freeland draws on skills honed during her journalism career to offer readers an up-close view of power.
Before resigning from parliament in January 2026, Freeland served as Canada’s deputy prime minister and finance minister, among other roles in government, and played a key role in negotiating the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Freeland is also the author of 2000’s Sale of the Century: Russia’s Wild Ride from Communism to Capitalism, about Russia’s evolution from communism to capitalism, and Plutocrats, about economic inequality and 2012’s Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, which explored economic inequality. Plutocrats won the 2013 Lionel Gelber Prize, a global prize for a foreign policy book, and the 2013 National Business Book Award, an annual prize given to the best business book in Canada.
Freeland is currently serving as a resident fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics and will become the CEO of the Rhodes Trust, the educational charity, in Oxford this July.
A biography of Freeland, titled Chrystia: From Peace River to Parliament Hill, written by Toronto journalist Catherine Tsalikis and published by House of Anansi Press, was released in 2024.
