OTTAWA (Reuters) – Former Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland on Friday announced that she would take part in the contest to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as leader of the ruling Liberal Party.
Freeland, who was one of Trudeau’s closest political allies for a decade, quit last month after resisting his demands for more spending and wrote a letter denouncing his governing style.
Her unexpected departure prompted an uproar from Liberal legislators already unhappy about the party’s miserable showing in the polls after nine years in power and widespread voter unhappiness about high prices and a housing crisis.
The mutiny forced Trudeau to announce that he would step down once the party had chosen a replacement. He will stay in office until March 9, when the new leader is due to be unveiled.
“I’m running to fight for Canada,” Freeland said in a post on X, saying her formal campaign launch would be on Sunday.
Trudeau’s replacement is unlikely to be in office long, given polls show that the Liberals are set to be crushed by the official opposition Conservatives. The next election must be held by Oct 20 and could happen as early as May.
The challenge for Freeland, 56, will be to portray herself as different from Trudeau, given how closely they worked together after the Liberals took power in November 2015 and how often she backed him in public.
Her likely main opponent is former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, who has never been part of the government and portrays himself as an outsider. He announced on Thursday he would be running.
Freeland had been finance minister since August 2020 and helped craft the government’s multibillion-dollar social spending program to help fight the pandemic.
She had previously been foreign minister and led the Canadian team that successfully renegotiated a trilateral trade deal with the United States and Mexico after then-President Donald Trump threatened to tear up the agreement.
She joined the government in November 2015, first serving as trade minister.
Before entering politics in 2013, Freeland worked as a journalist and in senior editorial roles with several media companies, including the Financial Times, the Globe and Mail, and Reuters, where she worked from 2010 to 2013.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Mark Porter)
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