Chrystia Freeland resigns from cabinet ahead of Ukraine envoy appointment

Chrystia Freeland will be stepping into a new role as a special representative to help rebuild Ukraine. Mike Le Couteur has the latest.

Transport and Internal Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland announced Tuesday she is stepping down from cabinet and will not run in the next federal election.

She will remain as an MP in the interim, and will serve as Canada’s new Special Representative for the Reconstruction of Ukraine, Prime Minister Mark Carney wrote in a letter posted to social media.

Freeland’s two portfolios are being divided between existing cabinet ministers. Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc is taking over internal trade, while Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon is taking transport.

Both were sworn in at Rideau Hall Tuesday afternoon.

“I am not leaving to spend more time with my family or because the burden of elected office is too heavy to bear,” Freeland wrote in her own letter posted to social media, alongside a picture of her hugging Carney. “For me and for my wonderful husband and children, public service has been a privilege and not a sacrifice.”

She said she made the decision with “tremendous gratitude and a little sadness.”

Carney, meanwhile, complimented Freeland on her “versatility, raw intelligence, and principled leadership.”

Sources close to Freeland tell CTV News that discussions about her next move have been underway in earnest since the start of summer. They also say Freeland wanted to prioritize securing an internal trade deal by Canada Day, but that discussions have been more open since then.

Sources also say there were other possibilities presented to Freeland that did not interest her until this one.

Freeland visited Ukraine last week with Canadian Ambassador to Ukraine Natalka Cmoc, former prime minister Jean Chretien and former Newfoundland and Labrador premier Andrew Furey.

Freeland is of Ukrainian descent and lived in both Ukraine and Russia during her two decades as a journalist.

A source familiar with the new appointment tells CTV News Freeland will work directly with Carney as his representative, and will work with Ukrainian leaders on a plan to rebuild the Ukrainian economy.

She will also work closely with Canadian business leaders, labour leaders, scholars and the Ukrainian-Canadian community.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford — who has developed a close relationship with Freeland in the last several years — was supportive of the move.

“She’s a friend, I talk to her almost daily,” Ford told reporters. “She’s going to do a great job over in Ukraine and I support her all the way.”

This is the second time Freeland has resigned from cabinet. Nine months ago to the day, Freeland stepped down in a scathing letter criticizing former prime minister Justin Trudeau over the fall economic statement. Freeland had served as Trudeau’s top minister for five years.

Trudeau himself resigned weeks later, kicking off the race to replace him.

Freeland then ran against now-prime minister Carney, her longtime friend, for the Liberal leadership. Carney won the contest in a landslide victory.

A senior government source tells CTV News that Carney wanted this second departure of Freeland’s from cabinet to be very different from last December, adding the friendship between the two is genuine.

The source acknowledged Freeland’s departure from cabinet enables the current government to move away from the Trudeau era.

In addition to the role of Trudeau’s deputy prime minister, Freeland has held a series of high-profile cabinet portfolios in the decade the Liberals have been in government.

When Carney was sworn in as prime minister and appointed his cabinet in March, he gave Freeland the transport and internal trade files. The latter was part of a Carney election promise to eliminate interprovincial trade barriers amid a protracted trade war with the United States.

Nanos Research founder and chief data scientist Nik Nanos said in an interview on The Vassy Kapelos Show on Tuesday that Freeland’s departure is the “next step” in Carney distancing himself from his predecessor. Freeland and Trudeau will always be “inextricably linked,” Nanos added.

Freeland has been an MP since 2013, when she left journalism to run for political office in the riding of Toronto Centre, during a closely watched byelection to replace former Liberal MP and current Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations Bob Rae.

She was considered a star candidate at the time, having written books focused on foreign affairs, income inequality and eastern Europe, one of which was a New York Times bestseller.

When the Liberals under Trudeau won the 2015 general election, Freeland was elected in the riding of University-Rosedale. She joined cabinet as minister of international trade, a portfolio in which she played a key role in renegotiating NAFTA, and helped ink a years-in-the-making Canada-European Union free trade deal.

Following a cabinet shuffle in 2017, Freeland became foreign affairs minister.

Then, after the 2019 election, while also stepping into the intergovernmental affairs minister role, Freeland became deputy prime minister, the first time someone had held that title in cabinet since 2006.

With files from CTV News’ Vassy Kapelos and Mike Le Couteur