Former deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland has officially announced that she will launch her campaign to become Canada’s next Prime Minister on the eve of the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
Freeland scrubbed her Instagram page on Friday, leaving only two posts, one in English and one in French, announcing that she would be running for Liberal party leadership.
“I’m running to fight for Canada,” reads the post shared to multiple social media sites.
Just hours before, Freeland shared an OP-ed she wrote, published in the Toronto Star, focusing heavily on the US-Canada relationship and the history of Canada fighting for its sovereignty.
“At a time when President Donald Trump is threatening our country, it’s time to stand up for Canada. We are a country by choice,” she said in the opinion piece. “Canada exists because generations of Canadians have chosen to stand for Canada, to build Canada and to fight for Canada.”
She spoke about the Confederation of Canada beginning as a response to threats of U.S. expansion fueled by the idea of manifest destiny. She related the history of fighting for sovereignty to the response she would take to address Trump’s recent threats to use economic coercion and merge Canada and the U.S.
Trump initially threatened 25% tariffs on Canadian imports until it secured its borders against illegal immigration and drug smuggling. Still, his rhetoric evolved after weeks of calling Canada the 51st state to include threats of economic force to annex Canada.
“President Donald Trump thinks tariff is the most beautiful word in the dictionary. He has spoken about redrawing borders — and has threatened economic coercion to do so,” she said in the Toronto Star Op-Ed.
“While it may be tempting to turn the other cheek, we must take President Trump at his word. Hope is not a strategy, and capitulation is not an option,” she said. “Now is the time for us to be strong, united and smart.”
She vowed to match Trump’s tariffs “dollar for dollar.”
“If you hit us, we will hit back. We will not escalate, but we will never back down,” she said. “ If President Trump imposes 25% tariffs, our counterpunch must be dollar-for-dollar — and it must be precisely and painfully targeted.”
She noted that Florida orange growers, Michigan dishwasher manufacturers and Wisconsin dairy farmers should “brace” for a response, noting that Canada is America’s largest export market.
“(Canada’s market) is bigger than China, Japan, the U.K., and France combined,” she said. “If pushed, our response will be the single largest trade blow the U.S. economy has ever endured.”
She said that using a dollar-for-dollar retaliation, a Liberal government could generate up to $150 billion, which Freeland said could be used for handouts to Canadians and businesses to “weather this essential fight.”
Despite being an opponent of natural liquid gas pipelines such as the Energy East pipeline, which would have enabled Canada to export LNG across seas, Freeland vowed to “support the security of Asian allies” by providing them with LNG.
According to the Canada Energy Regulator, Canada exported 50% of its total natural gas production in 2021, though 100% of those exports went to the U.S. alone.
Freeland also vowed to reinforce the Canada-U.S. border and ramp up defence in Canada’s Arctic, addressing two concerns of the incoming U.S. administration.
Freeland’s main competition in the Liberal leadership race is former Bank of Canada governor and godfather to one of her children, Mark Carney.
Carney launched his campaign to become Canada’s next prime minister Thursday.
Others confirmed in the leadership race are government house leader Karina Gould, Liberal MP Chandra Arya, and former Liberal MP Frank Baylis.
The liberal leadership race is set to conclude by Mar. 9.
