Christina Alexandra Freeland PC (born August 2, 1968) is a Canadian politician and journalist who worked as the 10th deputy prime minister of Canada from 2019 to 2024. A member of the Liberal Party, she was first elected as the member of Parliament (MP) for Toronto Centre in 2013 and then represented University—Rosedale from 2015 to 2026. Freeland served as a Cabinet minister from 2015 to 2025 during the leaderships of Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney.
After the 2015 federal election, Freeland was chosen by Prime Minister Trudeau to serve as the minister of international trade. In 2017, she became the minister of foreign affairs, helping Canada work on the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) and complete the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). In 2019, she became deputy prime minister and minister of intergovernmental affairs, holding that role until 2020, when she became minister of finance. As finance minister, Freeland created four federal budgets, including plans to help the government during the COVID-19 pandemic. She was the first woman to hold this position.
In December 2024, Freeland left her Cabinet position on the day she was scheduled to present the government’s fall economic statement. This caused a political crisis that led to the resignation of Trudeau. Freeland ran in the 2025 Liberal leadership election, finishing second to Carney. In March 2025, she returned to Cabinet after Carney appointed her minister of transport and internal trade, roles she held until resigning in September 2025. That same month, she was named special representative for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
On January 5, 2026, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Freeland’s appointment as an unpaid economic adviser to his government. Later that week, Freeland said she planned to resign as special representative and from Parliament. Her resignations took effect on January 9. In July 2026, Freeland will become the warden of Rhodes House and chief executive officer of the Rhodes Trust.
Early life and education (1968–1993)
Christina Alexandra Freeland was born on August 2, 1968, in Peace River, Alberta. Her father, Donald Freeland, was a farmer, lawyer, and member of the Liberal Party. Her paternal grandmother was a Scottish war bride. Her mother, Halyna Chomiak (1946–2007), was Ukrainian and also a lawyer. She ran for the New Democratic Party (NDP) in Edmonton Strathcona during the 1988 federal election. Her maternal grandfather was Michael Chomiak, a Nazi collaborator.
Freeland’s parents divorced when she was nine years old, but she continued to live with both of them.
Freeland was an activist from a young age. In fifth grade, she organized a strike to protest her school’s exclusive enrichment classes. She attended Old Scona Academic High School in Edmonton, Alberta, for two years. Later, she went to the United World College of the Adriatic in Italy on a merit scholarship from the Alberta government. The scholarship was for a project that aimed to promote international peace and understanding.
At Harvard University, Freeland studied Russian history and literature. From 1988 to 1989, she was an exchange student at the Taras Shevchenko State University of Kyiv in Soviet Ukraine. There, she studied Ukrainian and became fluent in the language. While in Ukraine, she worked with journalist Bill Keller of The New York Times to document the Bykivnia graves, an unmarked mass grave site where the NKVD (Soviet secret police) buried tens of thousands of dissidents. The Soviet government claimed the graves were the result of Nazi atrocities, but Freeland collected evidence from local witnesses who described trucks covered in blood and other signs of Stalinist repression and purges.
During her time in Ukraine, Freeland drew the attention of the KGB, which gave her the code name “Frida.” Soviet newspapers criticized her for interfering in their affairs by working with Ukrainian activists. The KGB monitored her, tapped her phone calls, and recorded her activities. They noted that she sent money, recording equipment, and a computer to contacts in Ukraine. She used the Canadian Embassy in Moscow to send materials abroad through diplomatic pouches. Freeland also worked with foreign journalists to report on life in the Soviet Union and organized protests to gain support from Western countries. After a trip to London in March 1989, she was not allowed to return to the Soviet Union. By the time her activism in Ukraine ended, the KGB had created a detailed case study about how much harm one determined person could cause to the Soviet Union. A 2021 article in The Globe and Mail quoted a former KGB officer who described Freeland as “a remarkable individual,” “knowledgeable, sociable, persistent, and inventive in achieving her goals.”
In the summer of 1990, Freeland worked as an intern for United Press International in London. Later, she earned a Master of Studies degree in Slavonic studies from the University of Oxford in 1993. She studied at St Antony’s College as a Rhodes Scholar.
Journalism career (1993–2013)
Freeland worked as a journalist in Ukraine and later held important editorial roles at the Financial Times, The Globe and Mail, and Reuters. She also wrote two books: Sale of the Century: Russia's Wild Ride from Communism to Capitalism (2000) and Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else (2012).
Freeland started her journalism career as a stringer for the Financial Times, The Washington Post, and The Economist while working in Ukraine. She later became a deputy editor at the Financial Times in London and worked as an editor for its weekend edition, FT.com, and UK news. She also served as the Moscow bureau chief and Eastern Europe correspondent for the Financial Times.
From 1999 to 2001, Freeland was the deputy editor of The Globe and Mail. She then worked as the managing director and editor of consumer news at Thomson Reuters. She also wrote a weekly column for The Globe and Mail. Before that, she was the editor of Thomson Reuters Digital, a position she held from April 2011. Earlier, she was the global editor-at-large of Reuters news, starting in March 2010. She had previously worked as the United States managing editor at the Financial Times in New York City.
Freeland wrote Sale of the Century: Russia's Wild Ride from Communism to Capitalism (2000) and Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else (2012). Sale of the Century describes privatization in Russia. It is based on interviews Freeland conducted with Russian businessmen from 1994 to 1998, when she lived in Russia as the Moscow bureau chief for the Financial Times. The book explains the challenges faced by people who supported capitalism, such as Anatoly Chubais and Yegor Gaidar, as they tried to take control of Russian industry from communist leaders. The compromises they made, like the loans for shares scheme, allowed businessmen such as Mikhail Fridman, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and Vladimir Potanin to gain control of the economy and become Russian oligarchs.
Plutocrats was a New York Times bestseller and won the 2013 Lionel Gelber Prize for non-fiction reporting on foreign affairs. It also received the 2013 National Business Book Award for the most outstanding Canadian business-related book.
Political career (2013–2026)
On July 26, 2013, Freeland left her job as a journalist to start a career in politics. She ran for the Liberal Party's nomination in Toronto Centre to replace Bob Rae, who was leaving his position to work as a negotiator for the Matawa First Nations in Northern Ontario. She won the nomination on September 15 and faced Linda McQuaig, an NDP candidate, in a by-election on November 25. During the campaign, she was criticized for buying a home worth $1.3 million, even though that price was typical for homes in Toronto. Freeland won 49 percent of the vote and became a member of Parliament. In 2013, she received campaign donations from Paul M. Grod, who was then president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and now leads the Ukrainian World Congress, and from James C. Temerty, a Ukrainian-Canadian businessman.
Before the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity, Freeland wrote an article for The Globe and Mail in which she strongly criticized the government of Viktor Yanukovych. She supported measures such as seizing personal assets and banning travel as part of economic sanctions against Yanukovych and his government. In March 2014, during Russia's annexation of Crimea, Freeland visited Ukraine on behalf of the Liberal Party. She met with leaders in Kyiv, including Mustafa Dzhemilev, a leader of the Crimean Tatars; Vitali Klitschko, a leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform; and Petro Poroshenko, who later became president of Ukraine. Since 2009, Freeland has regularly attended meetings organized by Ukrainian businessman Victor Pinchuk.
In March 2014, Freeland was one of thirteen Canadians banned from traveling to Russia by President Vladimir Putin. She responded on her official Twitter account, saying, "I love Russian language and culture, and I enjoyed my years in Moscow; but it is an honor to be on Putin's sanction list, especially with friends Cotler and Grod." In 2012 and 2013, changes to electoral boundaries shifted much of Freeland's support from Toronto Centre to the new riding of University—Rosedale. She ran in the 2015 federal election there and won 50 percent of the vote, defeating the NDP candidate, Jennifer Hollett.
On November 4, 2015, newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau named Freeland as Canada’s Minister of International Trade. She helped negotiate the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union, a project started by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The trade deal was signed on October 30, 2016, and was Canada’s largest trade agreement since NAFTA.
In January 2017, Freeland became Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, replacing Stéphane Dion. She worked with National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan to extend Canada’s military training mission in Ukraine until March 2019. In August 2017, she ordered her department to thoroughly review reports that Canadian-made military vehicles were used against civilians in Saudi Arabia. The government temporarily stopped exporting these vehicles to Saudi Arabia but later allowed exports to continue after finding no proof of human rights violations. Some groups, like Project Ploughshares, criticized the government for not considering the risk of abuse. Freeland supported Bill C-47, which allowed Canada to join the Arms Trade Treaty in 2019.
Freeland criticized the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, calling the violence "ethnic cleansing" and saying it was not acceptable. In August 2018, she expressed concern over the arrest of Samar Badawi, a human rights activist and sister of imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi. She called for their release. In response, Saudi Arabia expelled Canada’s ambassador and froze trade with Canada. Freeland asked for help from allies, including Germany, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. In September 2018, she raised concerns about human rights abuses against Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang region during a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
In January 2019, Canada granted asylum to 18-year-old Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed, who was fleeing an abusive family in Kuwait. Freeland greeted Mohammed at Toronto Pearson International Airport. She condemned Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro for taking power through "fraudulent and anti-democratic elections." Freeland joined the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees in 2019 and was ranked 37th among the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders in Fortune magazine that year. She supported the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests and criticized Turkey’s 2019 invasion of Kurdish areas in Syria.
After the 2019 federal election, Freeland became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. In this role, she focused on key parts of Prime Minister Trudeau’s domestic policies, such as strengthening Medicare, implementing Canada’s climate strategy, introducing firearms regulations, creating a national child care system, promoting free trade between provinces, and improving relations with Indigenous peoples. She also addressed tensions between the federal government and western provinces, especially in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Freeland continued to manage Canada’s relationship with the United States, including the ratification of the renegotiated free trade agreement with the U.S. and Mexico (CUSMA). The agreement was approved in March 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. In August 2020, she
Post-political career (2026–present)
On November 19, 2025, Freeland was named the next warden of Rhodes House and chief executive officer of the Rhodes Trust. Her new job begins on July 1, 2026. In February 2026, the Commissioner of Canada Elections determined that she violated Elections Canada rules without realizing it. This happened when she praised Liberal candidate Leslie Church during a government event in the middle of the 2024 Toronto—St. Paul's federal by-election. The Commissioner fined Freeland $900, and the University—Rosedale Liberal electoral district association paid the fine. Since February 2026, Freeland has worked with Bloomberg News as a frequent speaker on Wall Street Week and other Bloomberg Television programs. She also writes articles for Bloomberg Weekend.
Views
Freeland describes her political views as "simply Canadian" and feminist. She supports policies that balance economic and financial goals, aiming to improve public economics. She also supports a foreign policy that encourages international cooperation and open relationships between nations.
During her campaign for leadership of the Liberal Party in 2025, Freeland suggested replacing the carbon tax with a system created together with provinces and territories. She also proposed stopping the increase in the tax rate for capital gains, limiting profits on essential goods, and making shrinkflation (reducing product size while keeping prices the same) illegal.
In the January/February 2011 issue of The Atlantic, Freeland explained that the idea that Canada and the United States are becoming more controlled by the wealthy since the Great Recession is not false. She said that people with first- and second-generation wealth live very different lives from those in the middle and working classes. These wealthy individuals are often hardworking, highly educated, and travel frequently. They believe they deserve their success and may have mixed feelings about those who are less successful. Freeland also noted that these wealthy people are forming a global community with stronger connections to each other than to people in their own countries.
Freeland said the rise of wealth-based power is linked to advances in information technology and the expansion of free trade. She explained that free trade has helped developing countries grow, such as China and India, which saw increases in income per person from 1973 to 2002. However, income inequality has also worsened in both developed and developing countries. She said this is because new technologies have allowed large companies to grow faster, increasing profits and CEO pay. Freeland also said that companies have benefited from economic changes, such as Facebook’s success under Mark Zuckerberg in competing with Google. She cited the work of economists Peter Lindert, Emmanuel Saez, and Thomas Piketty.
Freeland argued that wealthy people often use philanthropy (giving money to help others) as a way to gain social acceptance and leave a lasting legacy. She gave examples, such as George Soros’s efforts through his Open Society Foundations and Pete Peterson’s use of $1 billion from Blackstone Inc. to support efforts to reduce government spending on benefits. She said the number of private foundations and think tanks created by wealthy individuals shows how important public engagement is to them.
Freeland said the "new plutocracy" (a group of wealthy people) is forming a global community with closer ties to each other than to people in their own countries. She noted that American business leaders started this trend later than others but are now catching up, as younger CEOs have more international experience. She explained that American businesses not expanding globally may fall behind.
In the July/August 2012 issue of The Atlantic, Freeland said the growth of family farming in the United States during the 2010s offers lessons for the country’s future. She said technological advances and global connections helped the farming industry grow despite changes in technology. She explained that modern farming methods are so different from those of 20 years ago that even people who left the countryside would struggle to recognize them. She also said the main reason for increased savings in rural areas is the growing global middle class, which has raised demand for crops like corn, soybeans, wheat, and canola. She cited Chris Erickson for this point. Freeland argued that the success of farming shows globalization helps not only large companies but also the middle class.
Freeland praised Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi for helping the American economy and the eurozone recover after the Great Recession. However, she warned that if central banks rely too much on adding money to the economy, it could lead to problems later, such as another recession. She also said some investors fear that easy money is hiding risks in the economy, creating dangerous and unnoticed bubbles.
In 2012, Freeland wrote in The Atlantic that the fossil fuel industry is not likely to end quickly due to new discoveries and technological progress. She said this trend could benefit countries like Brazil while causing challenges for oil-producing nations like Canada. She also said this trend could increase political debates about environmental issues, such as the controversy over the Keystone XL pipeline.
In 2025, Freeland proposed that Canada spend 2% of its GDP on defense by 2027, which would meet NATO’s target. She suggested increasing the size of the military and raising soldiers’ wages.
In another article for the July/August 2012 issue of The Atlantic, Freeland said platforms like Twitter can quickly help organize revolutions, especially in countries with strict rules. However, she said these movements often lose influence to more extreme groups, such as Islamist groups during the Arab Spring. She argued that traditional movements, like the Bolsheviks, Solidarity, and the African National Congress, were more effective because they had strong, centralized leadership capable of acting as a government-in-waiting.
Family and personal life
Freeland is married to Graham Bowley, a British writer and reporter for The New York Times. The couple has three children. She has lived in Toronto since the summer of 2013, when she returned from abroad to run for election. She speaks Ukrainian at home with her children. She is also skilled in English, Russian, Italian, and French. In 2014, John Geddes reported that Freeland and her sister shared ownership of an apartment overlooking the central square of Kyiv, Maidan Nezalezhnosti. Freeland also owns properties in London, United Kingdom.
Mark Carney, who ran against her in the 2025 Liberal Party leadership election, is the godfather of her son.
Freeland's paternal grandfather, Wilbur Freeland, was a farmer and lawyer who participated in the annual Calgary Stampede. His sister, Beulah, was married to a federal member of Parliament, Ged Baldwin. Her paternal grandmother, Helen Caulfield, was a World War II war bride from Glasgow. Freeland's mother, Halyna Chomiak, was born at a hospital operated by the U.S. Army. Her parents were staying at a displaced persons camp at the spa resort in Bad Wörishofen, Bavaria, Germany. Halyna's Ukrainian Catholic parents were Mykhailo Khomiak (Ukrainian: Михайло Хомяк, anglicized as Michael Chomiak), born in Stroniatyn, Galicia, and Alexandra Loban, originally from Rudniki, near Stanislaviv (now Ivano-Frankivsk).
Freeland's maternal grandfather, Michael Chomiak, was a journalist before World War II. During the war, when Nazi forces occupied parts of Poland and Austria, he was the chief editor of the Ukrainian daily newspaper Krakivs'ki Visti (Kraków News) for the Nazi regime. After Chomiak's death in 1984, John-Paul Himka, a professor of history at the University of Alberta (and also Freeland's uncle by marriage), used Chomiak's records, including old issues of the newspaper, to write scholarly papers about the coverage of Soviet mass murders of Ukrainian civilians. These papers also examined how these massacres were used as Nazi propaganda against Jews. In 2017, websites linked to Russia, such as Russia Insider and New Cold War, spread more information about her grandfather's ties to Nazi Germany. Freeland and her spokespeople responded by claiming this was a Russian disinformation campaign during her appointment as minister of foreign affairs. Her office later denied that her grandfather worked with Nazi Germany. However, reporting by The Globe and Mail showed that Freeland had known about her grandfather's Nazi ties since at least 1996, when she helped edit a scholarly article by Himka for the Journal of Ukrainian Studies.