Chrystia Freeland resigning as Toronto MP on Friday

Longtime Liberal MP and former cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland, who was a driving force in Canadian politics throughout the past decade, will resign as a member of Parliament on Friday.

"It has been an immense honour to serve my constituents and all Canadians in Parliament since 2013," Freeland said in a social media post Wednesday.

"Going forward, I will continue to support and help build Canada in every way I can, while championing the brave fight of the people of Ukraine, a cause I have been committed to my entire life."

On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced he had appointed her as an adviser on economic development in his country. Later that day, she announced her immediate resignation as Prime Minister Mark Carney's special representative for Ukraine's reconstruction.

Freeland has developed a reputation as one of the staunchest defenders of Ukraine after Russia's invasion, and has led an international push to seize Russian assets for the purpose of rebuilding Ukraine.

While Freeland said Monday she would resign from the House of Commons within weeks, she faced criticism from opposition MPs who said she should have resigned before taking a job advising another nation's leader.

"One cannot be a Canadian MP and an adviser to a foreign government. She must do one or the other," said Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong.

On Wednesday, she said she had informed House of Commons Speaker Francis Scarpaleggia that she will vacate her seat as of Jan. 9. Freeland said the Ukraine position is voluntary, and that she has consulted with the ethics commissioner and "followed his advice."

She did not say whether that advice included her resignation as an MP.

Her departure will push the Liberals slightly further from majority status - they had moved within one seat of a majority following the addition of two Conservatives who crossed the floor to join the Liberal caucus last year. A byelection for her Toronto riding of University-Rosedale now must be called to fill the seat.

The prime minister, who earlier this week said Freeland was "uniquely qualified" for the new role in Ukraine, made no statement following Freeland's resignation announcement on Wednesday. Under the Canada Elections Act, the government has up to six months to call the byelection, but Carney is expected to want to fill the seat as quickly as possible.

The soonest it can be held is in early March.

Freeland was first elected in 2013, initially representing Toronto Centre, and after a riding redistribution process in 2015, she ran and won in University-Rosedale.

Freeland served in cabinet under Justin Trudeau for all but the last few months of his time in his office, playing multiple roles, including international trade and foreign affairs. In 2020, she became the first woman to be sworn in as Canada's finance minister, a role she held until December 2024.

Her sudden resignation the morning of the fall economic statement was the final blow to Trudeau's leadership.

Freeland, who had privately been at odds with Trudeau over some fiscal policy decisions, stepped down days after Trudeau informed her he was going to be moving her to a different portfolio. Three weeks later, Trudeau announced he would be stepping down.

Last winter, Freeland ran to replace Trudeau as the party leader. She ran a scrappy campaign that positioned her early on as the candidate who would bring the most aggressive fight to U.S. President Donald Trump in his trade war against Canada — a claim she based on having helped lead negotiations with the Trump administration for the new continental free trade agreement.

She ultimately lost to Carney, who won the contest in a landslide victory with nearly 90 per cent of the vote.

Carney appointed her as his transport minister, but she left that post in September, the day she accepted a parliamentary secretary level role as the special representative on Ukraine's reconstruction. She said then she would not run again in the next election.

She has travelled to Ukraine multiple times in that role, but has shunned all media requests to discuss the job and what it entailed.

In November, it was announced she would become the CEO of the Rhodes Trust, a global educational charity in Oxford, England, starting on July 1, and she will move to England for the role. The charity is famous for its prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, which offers students from around the world the chance to study at the University of Oxford. 

A previous recipient of the scholarship, Freeland earned a degree in Slavonic Studies at the University of Oxford in the early 1990s.

She worked as a journalist in Kyiv and Moscow for the Financial Times, the Economist and the Washington Post, before returning to Canada, where she worked as an editor for The Globe and Mail in the late 1990s, and eventually for Reuters.

She is married to New York Times journalist Graham Bowley. The couple has two daughters and a son.

Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick