OTTAWA—At a glance, Chrystia Freeland’s background in deconstructing the world’s super-wealthy and pugnaciously critiquing Russia’s president wouldn’t appear to be an ideal resume for the job as Canada’s top diplomat dealing with Donald Trump’s White House.
But as the former journalist was elevated to the post Tuesday, Jan. 10, by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a critical moment in global relations, even her Opposition critic across the parliamentary aisle couldn’t find a bad word to say.
Freeland, 48, was the marquee move in Trudeau’s nine-person, six-portfolio cabinet shuffle and—not because she’s in a gender-busting role.
Though she is the first Liberal woman in the role, Freeland is Canada’s third female foreign affairs minister—after Flora MacDonald, who broke the glass ceiling in 1979, and Progressive Conservative Barbara MacDougall’s two-year stint from 1991 to 1993.
Given Freeland’s colourful resume, that gendered factoid wasn’t even on the radar.
The Oxford-educated Rhodes Scholar was an acknowledged rising star for the Liberals as international trade minister this past year, doggedly completing the CETA trade agreement with the European Union begun by the previous Conservative government. Freeland then graciously shared the credit with her predecessors.
