Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Madame Freeland. Chrystia Freeland’s resignation from cabinet should be celebrated by those who believe in equality & internationalism.
Deeply anti-Palestinian, Freeland has attended multiple genocide rallies and declared that “Canada stands with Israel”. When I asked Freeland in April 2024 if she condemned Israel’s killing of 14,000 Palestinian children she declined to respond. In fall 2018 foreign affairs minister Freeland visited Israel. During an Israel Council on Foreign Relations gathering she declared, “Canada’s commitment to Israel’s security is unwavering and ironclad.” At the November 2018 event alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Freeland added that if Canada won a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council in 2020 it would act as an “asset for Israel.” In an embarrassingly sycophantic speech that should be read in full, Freeland added that “the world also needs more Israel.”
In her most openly imperialistic move, Freeland coordinated Canada’s bid to overthrow Venezuela’s government. In 2020 Venezuelan foreign affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza pointed out that the Trudeau government’s Venezuela policy took a sharply belligerent turn after Freeland replaced Dion in January 2017. Freeland helped establish the Lima Group and participated in a half dozen meetings of the anti-Venezuelan government coalition. As the Globe and Mail reported, “Freeland spoke with Juan Guaidó to congratulate him on unifying opposition forces in Venezuela, two weeks before he declared himself interim president” in January 2019.
As part of her pro-Washington policy in the Hemisphere, Freeland also supported the ouster of Bolivia’s first indigenous president. Hours after the military command forced Evo Morales to resign on November 10, 2019, Freeland released a celebratory statement declaring, “Canada stands with Bolivia and the democratic will of its people.”
Ottawa provided significant support for the Organization of American States’ effort to discredit Bolivia’s 2019 vote, which fueled opposition protests and justified the coup. “Canada commends the invaluable work of the OAS audit mission in ensuring a fair and transparent process, which we supported financially and through our expertise”, noted Freeland at the time. But the OAS audit mission was designed to precipitate Morales ouster. A slew of studies demonstrated the partisan nature of the OAS audit mission and a year later Morales’ former finance minister, Luis Acre, won 55% of the vote for president and his MAS party took a large majority in the Congress.
Freeland is particularly hawkish on Ukraine and the NATO proxy war. As finance minister she led the international charge to freeze $300 billion in Russian Central Bank assets and give them to Ukraine. Canada has pledged $5 billion to Ukraine that was taken from seized Russian assets. Freeland’s also repeatedly called for escalating the NATO proxy war and sending more arms to Ukraine.
Long before Russia’s illegal February 2022 invasion, Freeland framed the smoldering fighting in eastern Ukraine as a global battle between good and evil. In November 2019 she declared that Ukraine was at the “forefront of the struggle between democracy and authoritarianism” and that “modern Ukraine is the country where the struggle is ongoing and the future of the rules-based international order and genuine democracy in the world will be determined.” But democracy has never been a genuine concern for the hardline nationalists in Freeland’s family. Her grandfather, Michael Chomiak, was a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator and propagandist during World War II.
Freeland is leaving cabinet to become Canada’s new Special Representative for the Reconstruction of Ukraine. While diminished in influence, she’ll likely promote policies that prolong a proxy war that a large majority of Ukrainians now want to end.
Chrystia Freeland’s resignation from cabinet and plan not to run again in the next election is good news.
