In Unreliable Boyfriend, Chrystia Freeland details the rift between her and Trudeau
Trudeau first asked Freeland to run in 2013.
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Trudeau → detail → 2013
He fired her over Zoom 11 years later
In Unreliable Boyfriend, one-time finance minister and deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland digs into how her political relationship with Justin Trudeau went from a warm face-to-face invite into public service to a cold Zoom call where he booted her from the finance role years later.
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he → fire → role
While the book's "unreliable boyfriend" is the United States under U.S. President Donald Trump, readers could be forgiven for thinking the title is actually inspired by Trudeau.
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title → forgive → Trudeau
She enthuses about how the pair worked together on the trade file, their management of the pandemic and their rollout of national child care.
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pair → enthuse → care
Yet she also details Trudeau's slide into unpopularity, penchant for humiliating members of his cabinet, word-policing and tendency to pick on those weaker than him.
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she → detail → him
While their relationship ended bitterly, she is still able to praise Trudeau for his strengths, one of which she noticed at a party in Toronto in late 2012, before Trudeau the Liberal MP became Trudeau the prime minister.
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Trudeau → end → 2012
At that party celebrating the launch of Freeland's book Plutocrats, her father cornered Trudeau to convey his thoughts on politics, eager to speak with "Liberal political royalty."
"I was mortified," Freeland recalled as she rushed over to try and free Trudeau from her father's grip — only to learn that the future prime minister was enjoying the chat.
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minister → celebrate → chat
The following summer Freeland was invited to a breakfast that included Trudeau and former Ontario premier and current MP Bob Rae.
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that → invite → Trudeau
She was told Rae was stepping down from his Toronto seat and was asked if she'd consider running in an upcoming byelection.
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she → tell → byelection
"I spent the next six weeks agonizing over Justin's offer," she wrote.
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she → spend → offer
She worried about uprooting her children from the life she and her husband had built for them in New York.
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she → worry → York
And with the Liberals in third place, she knew she may be "joining a lost cause."
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she → know → cause
In the end she wrote that she was won over by "Trudeau's kindness to my dad" and her father's encouragement to accept the offer.
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she → write → offer
Knowing when to play hardball
One of Trump's first moves as president was to sign an executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.
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One → know → deal
By the spring of 2017, Trump was also threatening to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
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Trump → threaten → Agreement
The remaining TPP countries were set to sign the pact on the margins of a November summit in Da Nang, Vietnam.
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countries → remain → Nang
But Freeland, who was foreign affairs minister at the time, wrote that Trudeau wanted a better deal.
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Trudeau → write → deal
In a call with then international trade minister François-Philippe Champagne, Freeland and others, Trudeau humiliated Champagne for not securing concessions on intellectual property and other issues.
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Trudeau → humiliate → property
TPP faces uncertain future after Trudeau skips meeting
Partners reach agreement on 'core elements' of trade deal, Canada says
"I still cringe as I remember it — the embarrassment I felt at hearing a colleague humiliated reminded me of feeling bad for my childhood friends in Peace River when they got spanked while I was over to play."
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I → face → River
When Canada refused to sign the deal, Freeland wrote Trudeau angered both Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
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Trudeau → refuse → Abe
Despite that pushback, Freeland said she admired the defiance.
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she → say → defiance
"Trudeau showed that, love him or loathe him, you could not deny that he was a leader with balls," she wrote.
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she → show → balls
Freeland said with NAFTA talks coming up, it was important to let the White House know when it came to trade deals, Canada "was prepared to play hardball."
The 'FAFO' fight for free trade
By early 2018, Freeland wrote she had grown so "worried that American proposals could kill NAFTA" she'd begun writing a speech to deliver after its demise.
During particularly fraught meetings with U.S. officials in Washington, Freeland admitted she would occasionally "take refuge in the ladies' washroom" which was a safe place because, she said, there were almost never any women on the U.S. side of the table.
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she → say → table
"Once, at a particularly dire moment, I got down on my knees on the cold white tiles in front of the sinks and prayed," she wrote.
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she → get → sinks
Freeland said that Canada only managed to save that deal because it imposed retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. when it hit Canada with steel and aluminum tariffs, targeting key Republican districts.
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it → say → districts
That "FAFO" approach, and Trudeau's willingness to employ it, she wrote, was what ensured Canada got back to a "reciprocal relationship with our neighbour."
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Canada → employ → neighbour
The evolution of Freeland's relationship with her U.S. counterpart
Freeland says renegotiated NAFTA was always going to come down to the wire
She said the details of the new NAFTA, an agreement Canadians now call the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), were largely left to her.
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Canadians → say → her
Trudeau "got extremely involved in the fine print of his own public appearances … on trade he didn't dive into the details," she said.
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she → get → details
Still, she described the saving of NAFTA as "Trudeau's finest hour … the moment when Canada's playboy prince became a true national leader."
But Freeland says Trudeau's political stock was already in decline on another front thanks to his ill-fated trip to India.
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stock → describe → India
Trudeau, his then wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau and children Xavier and Ella-Grace are seen during their February 2018 trip to India.
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Trudeau → see → India
She described Trudeau's state visit to India in February 2018 as "a political disaster" where his over-the-top outfits became a distraction — and a Canadian of Indian descent, Jaspal Atwal, who was convicted of attempted murder for trying to assassinate an Indian cabinet minister, turned up at an official event.
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who → describe → event
Crying at cabinet meetings
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Crying → cry → meetings
Over the next few years, Trudeau landed achievements that Freeland wrote will be judged kindly by history.
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Freeland → land → history
She praised him for his role in securing trade deals with the U.S., EU and the Pacific Rim countries, rolling out a national daycare program and managing the pandemic.
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She → praise → pandemic
But she noted that Canadians had started to sour on him for his "self-righteous exhibitionism.
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Canadians → note → exhibitionism
"Crying was routine at cabinet meetings," she wrote.
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she → write → meetings
"There were always boxes of Kleenex on hand, and really sad colleagues would sometimes get a hug from the PM."
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colleagues → be → PM
Freeland noted one moment when Trudeau gave a female colleague a "long, harsh public scolding" for describing something as crazy.
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Trudeau → note → something
Trudeau apparently told the colleague that the term was a "derogatory adjective" that was "insulting to people with mental health issues."
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that → tell → issues
The term Trudeau wanted them to use instead was "bananas."
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them → want → ?
…and 29 more, not listed.
The Aporia
