Chrystia Freeland Biography | “She is very loyal, but she is not a rug”

(Ottawa) The scene takes place on the train to Kyiv, in 2022. As they retire to their cabin, the members of the Canadian delegation try to find a bottle of wine. Bad luck: there is no alcohol on board, they are told.

That was until Chrystia Freeland got involved.

During her discussions (in Ukrainian) with the flight attendants, she ended up getting her hands on a bottle of bourbon, which she then shared with her colleagues, it is said in a biography of the resigning minister which appears this Friday.

“It may be an anecdote, but it perfectly illustrates something that has become obvious […] : in the Trudeau government, certain things would never be done without Chrystia Freeland,” we read in the first pages of the work.

Now she is out of the seat of executive power in Ottawa because she refused to do certain things – according to the version she gave in a resignation letter¹ which caused a political earthquake on the hill on Monday.

Originally, the unauthorized biography (published only in English) was to be published on February 4, 2025. But in light of what happened at the beginning of the week, the publishing house brought forward its release in bookstores.

“I didn’t think it would end in such an acrimonious way,” says author Catherine Tsalikis. She is very loyal, and she has already been the number two to powerful men in her career. But at the same time, Chrystia Freeland is not a rug. »

As a student in Kyiv at the end of the 1980s, she challenged the KGB. “Your Canadian is a notorious troublemaker. You should better control your citizens,” the regime said in a telegram sent to the Canadian embassy in Moscow.

Head of office of Financial Times in Moscow in the 1990s, she wrote about the omnipotence of the oligarchs for whom President Boris Yeltsin had rolled out the red carpet.

Tensions with Bill Morneau

From the Russian capital via London and New York, the author takes us to the international forum in Banff, Alberta, in 2011. At the time general director of the Thomson Reuters news agency, Chrystia (Christina, by her real name) Freeland is one of the panelists.

She attracted the attention of the woman who would become Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff: Katie Telford – the very one whose influence on policies is not unrelated to the departure of the minister “on whom Trudeau relied[ait] the most,” we read in the book.

His beginnings in politics, on the opposition benches, did not particularly please him. “I don’t think she liked the opposition; I don’t think she’s cut out to be in opposition,” Bob Rae, former interim Liberal leader, testified in the book.

It is really as pilot of the renegotiation of NAFTA that she leaves her mark. But she does not achieve this without offending certain people, notably her predecessor Bill Morneau, we detail in the work.

“There was, in particular, tension between Chrystia and Morneau over what the outcome should be,” and she “was exasperated because she felt like he wasn’t seeing the big picture,” confides in the delivers an anonymous government source.

The magazine Foreign Policy will name her diplomat of the year in June 2018, while trade talks are still ongoing, and the Trump administration has just hit Canadian steel and aluminum products with tariffs.

And in a speech delivered in Washington during the award ceremony, Chrystia Freeland criticized this decision. “The speech was not well received at the White House,” the biography reads.

American President Donald Trump will also call her a “nasty woman” (nasty woman) a few days later during a call with Justin Trudeau. “His behavior was totally toxic,” he repeated last Monday on his Truth Social network.

Between loyalty and ambition

A new chapter now begins for Chrystia Freeland. “As number two, she was called ‘the minister of everything,’ and few would be surprised if she one day became leader of the Liberal Party,” writes author Catherine Tsalikis.

“If Chrystia has such ambitions, she keeps them secret, taking care to minimize speculation about leadership, even among friends and family,” she adds, citing in particular her sister Natalka.

It wouldn’t even occur to him to “try to pass his [programme] ahead of that of Justin Trudeau,” says Natalka, who is among the approximately 130 people with whom the biographer spoke for this work.

The last word, on page 295, goes to former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. “She will be a high caliber player no matter what happens. »

1. Read “Resignation of Chrystia Freeland: the letter that ignited the powder”

Read an excerpt from the biography on Chrystia Freeland in the Dialogue section

Chrystia – From Peace River to Parliament Hill

Catherine Tsalikis

House of Anansi Press

360 pages