Biographer Catherine Tsalikis spent the last four years researching, writing, and editing a book about Chrystia Freeland. But she was just as shocked as the rest of Canada when she learned of the former finance minister and deputy prime minister’s scathing resignation letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted early last week to her social media channels.
But what Tsalikis wasn’t as stunned by was the language and tone of the letter. “It was 100 per cent on brand for her,” the writer, whose unauthorized biography Chrystia: From Peace River to Parliament Hill was released Dec. 20, told Yahoo Canada via Zoom from her home in Toronto.
“Chrystia used to be a journalist. She knows how to get a message out. In speaking to people who know her — through her career as a high-profile business journalist in New York City to her days in politics — she is someone who really thinks things through. You can see that in the way she would speak to the media at press conferences. She’s very measured in her words. When she would give a speech, it was never for the sake of it. It was always very deliberate.”
She is someone who really thinks things through. You can see that in the way she would speak to the media at press conferences. She’s very measured in her words.
No doubt the the PM’s demotion of the 56-year-old Freeland from finance minister to heading Canada-U.S. relations without ministry or resources attached to the cabinet post compelled her to draw a line in the sand. “She knew she was in an untenable position and didn’t have the confidence of the prime minister anymore. This was a matter of principle.”
Tsalikis can’t say whether the resignation was intended to cause maximum damage but that was certainly the effect. “She is no shrinking violet and she has proven time and again throughout her life that she will not be run over. She’s not afraid of standing on principle as she has done throughout her career in politics — even to the detriment of the government itself.”
Tsalikis feels the integrity of the letter is more aligned with the Chrystia Freeland that she has come to know through her family, friends, and colleagues. This is in contrast to the woman she observed over the past few weeks who took a stand despite the PM putting forth increasingly puzzling policies that seemed to be geared more towards electoral votes rather than the economic situation of the country. “She didn’t resign a month ago,” Tsalikis points out. “It wasn’t until Trudeau demoted her that she took a stand. It’s kind of a contradiction.”
One could argue that the contradiction in Freeland’s character comes from her parents. When she was a teenager in Peace River, Alberta, her father, Donald Freeland got into a physical altercation with the police over unpaid parking tickets,” she says with amusement. “He wasn’t afraid to be in your face.”
Her mother, Halyna, on the other hand, was her moral compass. Halyna was a women’s rights lawyer and played a significant role in helping to modernize Alberta’s matrimonial property laws. Until the late 1970s, divorced women in the province had no legal entitlement to their matrimonial property if the property was in their husband’s name. Newly divorced herself, “Halyna rallied women [in Edmonton] for the Matrimonial Property Act,” Tsalikis explains. “That was groundbreaking — particularly in Alberta where it was predominantly conservative. She had to travel to 100 different locations and sometimes she brought Chrystia with her.”
At age nine, the latch-key Freeland internalized her mother’s advocacy. “She saw how hard Halyna, by now a single mother, had to work,” Tsalikis emphasizes. “She didn’t have childcare.”
When Halyna was in law school, she brought infant Freeland to class with her sometimes.
“Sometimes she was with Halyna’s mother but Chrystia saw how hard that was growing up.”
Cut to her career in politics, Tsalikis says you can trace that line from Halyna to the current daycare agreement which was Freeland’s baby, so to speak.
“Liberals have been promising this country-wide affordable childcare plan since 1993, but it took a female finance minister to be the one to ink it and sign it through. Men in the PMO didn’t think the idea was a vote-getter but it wasn’t until the [COVID-19 pandemic] showed how women were disproportionately having to leave the workforce to take care of their children that Freeland was finally able to seize on it and be like, ‘Let’s do this.’”
This was kind of in memory of her mother (Halyna died at age 60 in 2006) who had quit her job in her later years so that Freeland could flourish in hers. “She moved in with the family,” Tsalikis says.
When Halyna died, her two sisters — Chrystia’s aunts — took turns rotating to be at her house in Toronto and caring for her children so that she could go back and forth to Ottawa when she was an MP.
“Chrystia’s sister Nathalie told me it’s great that we had aunts, but not everyone has aunts.”
Freeland’s husband Graham Bowley’s own career as a reporter for The New York Times was equally demanding. She has often publicly expressed how it’s always a struggle to balance her “two true loves,” work and family, and how grateful she is that she had a support system.
Similar to her mother’s win for Albertan women when she lobbied the provincial government to improve legislation on matrimonial property laws , no doubt putting the daycare plan in place is one of Freeland’s signature achievements. “People who have worked with her have told me that most of Trudeau’s policies are Chrystia Freeland’s policies.”
People who have worked with her have told me that most of Trudeau’s policies are Chrystia Freeland’s policies.
Some might perceive Freeland as Trudeau’s successor now that she’s separated herself from him, but as someone who has unique insight into her character, Tsalikis doesn’t believe she has designs on the top job. “How do you separate yourself from that legacy? I spoke with around 130 people and not one of them gave me any indication that she had ever vocalized a desire to be the leader of the Liberal Party. Not one,” she says emphatically. “If she has any ambition, she has kept them strictly under wraps.”
Even if Freeland does want to go for it, she would still have to contend with her relationship with Trudeau. “How do you divorce yourself from all that history? She is a very loyal person and loyalty has served her well in this government — even if it wasn’t enough in the end.”
I spoke with around 130 people and not one of them gave me any indication that she had ever vocalized a desire to be the leader of the Liberal Party. Not one.
