Former Canadian Minister Of Finance Nominated To Replace PM Trudeau

Former Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland/PHOTO via Instagram @chrystiafreeland

JAKARTA - Former Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland announced she participated in a contest to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the leader of the ruling Liberal Party.

Freeland, one of Trudeau's closest political allies for a decade, resigned last month after rejecting his demands for more financial budgets and writing letters condemning Trudeau's governing style.

His unexpected departure sparked a stir among Liberal Party legislators who were already unhappy with the party's poor performance in the election after nine years in power and widespread voters' dislike for high prices and housing crises.

This condition forced Trudeau to announce he would step down after his party chose a replacement. He will remain in office until March 9, when the new leader will be sworn in.

"I'm running for Canada," Freeland said in a post on X.

It seems that Trudeau's successor will not last long, given the polls indicating the Liberal Party will be defeated by the official opposition, Conservative. The next election must be held on October 20 and can be held in early May.

The challenge for Freeland, 56 years old, is to show itself different from Trudeau, given how closely their cooperation was after the Liberal Party took power in November 2015 and how often he supported Trudeau in public.

Most likely his opponent is former Governor of the Central Bank of Canada Mark Carney, who was never part of the government and described himself as an outside person. He announced on Thursday he would run.

Freeland has been finance minister since August 2020 and helped design a billion-dollar government social spending program to help fight this pandemic.

He previously served as foreign minister and led a Canadian team that successfully renegotiated a trilateral trade agreement with the United States and Mexico after President Donald Trump threatened to cancel the agreement.

He joined the government in November 2015, first serving as minister of trade.

Prior to entering politics in 2013, Freeland worked as a journalist and served as senior editorial at several media companies, including the Financial Times, Globe and Mail, and Reuters, where he worked from 2010 to 2013.