Speaking to journalists in Toronto on Friday, Chrystia Freeland didn’t want to talk about the whispers around Parliament Hill that tensions between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were running high.
“I’m proud and grateful to be able to serve in the cabinet of the prime minister,” Freeland said.
“I really don’t spend a lot of time focusing on Ottawa gossip. My focus is on doing what I can to serve Canada and Canadians in what is a really challenging time for our country.”
Freeland stunned the country Monday by abruptly resigning from cabinet. The announcement could have been timed for maximum impact — mere hours before she was scheduled to deliver the government’s Fall Economic Statement.
Her letter of resignation was posted to social media just as her cabinet colleagues were entering a 9:30 a.m. cabinet meeting, and only hours before Trudeau was scheduled to address some of the Liberal Party’s top donors at an evening Laurier Club holiday party.
Monday’s turn of events, which left the Trudeau government reeling, stood in stark contrast to Freeland’s entry into politics more than a decade ago.
An Alberta-born Rhodes scholar, successful journalist and author, Freeland was first elected to Parliament in November 2013 in a byelection in the riding of Toronto Centre, which was left vacant by the resignation of Bob Rae. Author of an award-winning book about the world’s wealthiest people, Freeland promised during the campaign to champion the middle class.
Trudeau has often talked about his efforts to recruit Freeland to run for the Liberals, a campaign that began in 2012.
“I asked her to run for politics, which involved leaving New York to move to Toronto to run for a nomination that I couldn’t guarantee she was going to win and then run in a by-election as a distant third-party candidate so that maybe she could move to Ottawa,” Trudeau told an audience in 2017 at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit. “And it took weeks of asking her and appealing to both service but also … saying, ‘We need your voice.'”
In October 2015, Freeland won the riding of University Rosedale, the Liberals were swept to power and she was named to cabinet as minister of international trade.
Confronting Trump
There, Freeland had to salvage the Canada-Europe trade agreement. It had been initiated under the Conservatives but in late 2016 it ran into opposition from the Belgian region of Wallonia.
In January 2017, she was appointed minister of foreign affairs, just as newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump came to office pledging to renegotiate the North American Trade Agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Despite the challenging negotiations and Trump personal dislike of Freeland (he took a public dig at her at one point), she managed to successfully stickhandle the talks. In November 2018, the CUSMA free trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico was signed.
Freeland stuck by Trudeau when he came under fire over scandals and controversies, such as the SNC Lavalin affair that prompted Justice Minister Jody Wilson Raybould to resign.
In November 2019, Freeland was named minister of intergovernmental affairs and deputy prime minister.
In an interview behind closed doors in February with counsel for the public inquiry into foreign interference, Freeland discussed why she was named to that position and how she saw the role of deputy prime minister.
“There was a need to focus on national unity and to strengthen the federal government’s relationships with the provinces after the 2019 election,” says the summary of her witness interview, recently made public by the inquiry.
“Given her roots in Alberta and her experience coordinating a national position on NAFTA, Minister Freeland believes that the prime minister appointed her to be both the IGA minister and the DPM to demonstrate the importance he was placing on her efforts to strengthen the relationship with the provinces.”
A wide mandate
Freeland told her interviewers that the deputy prime minister role also gave her licence to get involved in issues that wouldn’t normally be part of her job.
“Minister Freeland’s status as DPM also gave the PM the flexibility to involve Minister Freeland in issues that are sometimes outside her main portfolio, and gave her an added convening authority to discuss time-sensitive issues,” says the witness statement.
“For example, when the PM established the COVID committee in March 2020, Minister Freeland was well-placed to serve as the committee’s chair, although this role did not necessarily fit directly within her then portfolio as minister of intergovernmental affairs. Another example is Minister Freeland’s involvement in the government’s effort to support Ukraine.”
In August 2020, Freeland made history when she became Canada’s first ever female finance minister. At the time, it was reported that her predecessor, Bill Morneau, resigned suddenly over a growing rift with Trudeau.
Freeland inherited the portfolio just as the country was in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic and the government had been shovelling money out the door to prop up businesses, local governments and Canadians who suddenly lost their jobs when the country locked down.
The government delivered a number of new programs during Freeland’s time in finance, including lower-cost child care, dental care and pharmacare. But Freeland’s time in the portfolio was also a period of high inflation, controversial proposed changes to capital gains taxes and a growing deficit.
In July, reports began to emerge of dissent within Liberal circles as the party continued to trail the Conservatives badly in the polls. Whispers from anonymous insider sources to reporters described tensions between Freeland and Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford. Reporters were told that government insiders didn’t think Freeland was doing a good job of communicating the government’s economic program.
Trudeau defended her in public.
“I have full confidence in her abilities and the work we’re going to be doing together,” Trudeau told reporters in July at the end of the annual NATO summit in Washington.
Last week, however, reports surfaced that Freeland and Trudeau were “at odds” over the government’s plans for a GST holiday, which began Saturday, and the plan to send out $250 cheques to many Canadians. The reports also suggested that Trudeau was trying to recruit former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, likely as finance minister.
On Friday, Trudeau proved the reports right by telling Freeland that he wanted a different finance minister and offering her a different position in cabinet.
In her resignation letter, Freeland said she plans to continue to sit as a Liberal member of Parliament and to run again in the riding of University Rosedale, which she won handily in the last election with 47.5 per cent of the vote. Liberal Party officials say she locked up the nomination in February.
