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Is Chrystia Freeland’s biography among the most sought-after Xmas gifts?
The seasoned politician recently resigned as the deputy PM.
Cover of the book. / Amazon website
Besides traditional cakes, wines and turkeys, one of the most sought-after items as a Christmas gift to a member of the Liberal caucus has been just released an unauthorized biography of Chrystia Freeland, whose scathing resignation letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, hours before she was to present the fall Financial Statement to the House of Commons, shook the federal politics like never before.
Media reports reveal that Chrystia Freeland, a seasoned politician and very measured in her words, has been the most talked about woman for the past several days. “People are more interested in her today than they were ever before,” says her biographer Catherine Tsalikis.
Chrystia Freeland, true to her style, has not spoken much after releasing her stunning resignation letter on Dec.17 and is being projected as a possible replacement for Justin Trudeau. Two Liberal caucus members, including Chandra Arya, have openly declared to support her as a leader who can lead the party through the current crisis and also the impending federal elections.
Toronto-based Catherine Tsalikis, who has written “Chrystia: From Peace River to Parliament Hill,” says that she was not surprised by the tone of the resignation letter. “It was 100 per cent on brand for her,” she said in an interview with media. She spent the last four years researching, writing, and editing her biography which was originally scheduled for release in March/April this year.
However, rapidly unravelling political developments led to its early release, two days after the House of Commons adjourned for the holiday break. She told media that 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.
“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 thinks things through. You can see that in the way would speak to the media at press conferences. She is very measured in her words.
A couple of days before reshuffling his Cabinet, when Justin Trudeau informed her that he would be taking her off the Finance portfolio and instead want her to head the Canada-U.S. relations virtually 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,” she told media.
“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 says in her media interaction that she came to know her through her family, friends, and colleagues. She says 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.
Her mother, Halyna, on the other hand, was her moral compass. She 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,” reveals Tsalikis. “That was ground-breaking — 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 did not have childcare” as at times she used to take infant Chrystia to her school or leave her with her mother.
Tsalikis says that Chrystia has never shared her ambition of party leadership with anyone. Maybe, she says, she has been keeping it in wraps.
Even if Freeland does want to go for it, she would still have to contend with her relationship with Trudeau. “How do you separate yourself from that legacy? 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,” adds Tsalikis.
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