So long, Carney—Chrystia Freeland has officially left cabinet
Remember the firestorm last time she quit?
Earlier today, the Globe and Mail reported on the expected departure of Chrystia Freeland from cabinet. Through various anonymous sources came word that the current minister of transport and internal trade—who has served as a Liberal cabinet minister since 2015, including stints as finance minister, minister of foreign affairs and deputy prime minister—is planning to take some kind of envoy position in Ukraine. There were no further details, just lots of questions: What was the role? Was she giving up her seat as an MP? Was her recent trip to Ukraine a covert house-hunting expedition?
Related: Chrystia Freeland’s biographer on the finance minister’s bombshell resignation
Both Freeland and Prime Minister Mark Carney wore poker faces while at Parliament Hill Tuesday morning, though comments from Defence Minister David McGuinty felt like soft confirmation: “Our strong relationship with Ukraine is very important. I think that we continue to show leadership in the region, and I think that we have to remember that the threat landscape in the Ukrainian theatre of war is serious, that the Russians are not pulling back. If Minister Freeland wants to serve in that capacity, I think she would do a wonderful job.”
Freeland has ancestral ties to Ukraine and speaks fluent Ukrainian and Russian. She studied Russian history and literature at Harvard in the 1980s and, as a student, travelled behind the Iron Curtain to Ukraine, where she worked as a journalist for several years. In the ’90s, she served as Moscow bureau chief and eastern Europe correspondent for the Financial Times. She has been a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Last year, she travelled to Davos to rally support for Ukraine, where she told media, “Pussyfooting around Putin doesn’t work.”
Now, Freeland herself has confirmed her cabinet departure with a resignation letter that is, let’s face it, nowhere near the scorched-earth situation she dropped last December. Remember when Justin Trudeau tried to demote her and she straight-up got him canned? (A slight oversimplification of what actually happened, but having his long-time right hand turn against him certainly hastened the PM’s exit.)
Related: The tenacious Chrystia Freeland
By comparison, Freeland’s latest resignation announcement could be a political-platitudes drinking game: she thanks both Carney and Trudeau, lists some of her key achievements, praises democracy and includes absolutely no information about her future role—just that she won’t run again in her riding of University-Rosedale.
We did get a photo, though: a candid snap of Freeland and Carney being buddy-buddy feels like an attempt to quiet inevitable speculation that she wasn’t keen on the Liberal party’s pivot to the right or is leaving at his suggestion. Carney responded in kind, thanking Freeland for her service and friendship. See, Canada: nothing but good vibes (or at least good judgment) on the PM’s part. As the last guy learned, pussyfooting around Freeland is not advisable either.
Courtney Shea is a freelance journalist in Toronto. She started her career as an intern at Toronto Life and continues to contribute frequently to the publication, including her 2022 National Magazine Award–winning feature, “The Death Cheaters,” her regular Q&As and her recent investigation into whether Taylor Swift hung out at a Toronto dive bar (she did not). Courtney was a producer and writer on the 2022 documentary The Talented Mr. Rosenberg, based on her 2014 Toronto Life magazine feature “The Yorkville Swindler.”
