Former finance minister turned cabinet turned disrupter Chrystia Freeland will kick off her campaign to be the next Liberal leader at a launch in her Toronto riding today.
She announced her candidacy on social media late last week, saying simply she was “running to fight for Canada.”
Freeland’s campaign launch comes nearly a month after she resigned from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet and one day before U.S. president-elect Donald Trump takes office, two factors Freeland will likely lean on as she seeks the top job.
The former deputy prime minister resigned from cabinet in mid-December, which sent shock waves through Ottawa and galvanized a caucus to push Trudeau out.
In a letter to the prime minister that was subsequently posted to social media, Freeland said she had no choice but to resign after Trudeau approached her about moving to another cabinet role.
Her searing resignation letter, sent the same day she was originally set to deliver the Liberals’ fall economic statement, took aim at Trudeau’s handling of the economy, his approach to Trump and denounced in the letter what she called the government’s “costly political gimmicks.”
Writing in the Friday Toronto Star, Freeland teased the tone she’d use against Trump’s threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian imports when he assumes office suggesting Canada will unleash “the single largest trade blow the U.S. economy has ever endured.”
“While it may be tempting to turn the other cheek, we must take President Trump at his word. Hope is not a strategy and capitulation is not an option,” Freeland wrote.
Freeland led Canada’s negotiating team during Trump’s first term in office, when the North American Free Trade Agreement was in jeopardy.
After her resignation, Trump took to social media to call Freeland “toxic.”
Race to replace PM firms up
Freeland will face off against central banker Mark Carney, who is pitching himself as someone who can lead Canada through economic uncertainty.
“I’m not the usual suspect when it comes to politics but this is no time for politics as usual,” he said at his Thursday launch in Edmonton.
Government House leader Karina Gould confirmed Saturday she is running as well, making her the youngest candidate so far to throw their hat into the ring to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
MP Chandra Arya, who represents the Ottawa-area riding of Nepean; former Montreal MP and businessman Frank Baylis; and MP Jaime Battiste, who represents the Nova Scotia riding of Sydney—Victoria, have all declared they’re running for the leadership.
Candidates only have until Jan. 23 to declare they are running and begin a series of entry fee payments to the party so they can join the race.The party will choose their next leader, who will serve as the next prime minister, March 9.