Liberal Party of Canada leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland arrives at the Liberal Party of Canada convention in Ottawa, on March 9.Spencer Colby/The Globe and Mail
There was no real expectation that Chrystia Freeland would win the Liberal leadership race and make history as Canada’s second female prime minister. Even so, Sunday’s results must have been a blow. With Mark Carney’s landslide win, she placed second – with a mere 8 per cent of the vote, compared to nearly 86 per cent for Mr. Carney.
In raw numbers, Mr. Carney received 131,674 votes; Ms. Freeland, only 11,134.
To add insult to injury, this dismal result came one day after International Women’s Day, which brought the requisite statement from the Prime Minister. “Women in Canada have made transformative progress in shaping our country for the better. Today, we celebrate their remarkable achievements, we honour their legacy of breaking norms and ceilings and lifting up others,” declared Justin Trudeau on Saturday. “And we reaffirm that there’s more work to be done.”
The following day, Ms. Freeland – a woman who has indeed shaped this country, including as the catalyst for Sunday’s event when she resigned from cabinet in December – not only failed to crack a ceiling, but did not even manage to crack double digits.
There is more work to be done, yes.
That said, the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Mr. Carney’s landslide may be all that history remembers, but Ms. Freeland should not be characterized as an also-ran. She should have done better, and in a different time, she would have.
In an existential crisis, Mr. Carney is the closest the party – and maybe the country – has to a safe bet. A Liberal who might otherwise have stayed loyal to Ms. Freeland, or may have been worried about Mr. Carney’s lack of political experience, might have voted differently if not for the very real threat Canada is facing from the United States.
Mr. Carney – brainy, level-headed, extremely literate in matters of finance – will offer formidable resistance to Donald Trump. He is also, polls show, seen as the safest bet to take on Pierre Poilievre, which he will need to do to get to Mr. Trump.
Still, it would have been something to see Ms. Freeland’s sharp intelligence up against Mr. Poilievre’s rote sloganeering. And wouldn’t you have loved to see her take on Mr. Trump, triggering his disdain for strong women? He has already publicly insulted Ms. Freeland, calling her a “whack.” As satisfying as it would have been to see her tear Mr. Trump to shreds, history will not allow for that.
Ultimately, being a Trump target and carrying Trudeau baggage – despite how things ended with the departing Prime Minister – helped make Ms. Freeland a risk.
She handled her defeat with grace and class, qualities wholly absent from Mr. Trump. She congratulated Mr. Carney (an old family friend and godfather to her son) and pledged to help him. She also praised third-place finisher Karina Gould, who no doubt has a significant future with the party.
Ms. Freeland said she enjoyed the campaign and was glad she ran. “It’s important for young women and girls to see women throwing their hat in the ring, taking a risk, putting their name on a ballot.”
Was politicking while female a detriment to Ms. Freeland? Perhaps, insofar as there may be a perception that her gender could have hurt her chances against Mr. Poilievre. That sort of misogyny still exists, even outside the White House.
Ms. Freeland was a journalist, speaking on a panel in 2011, when she first caught the eye of Katie Telford, who would become Mr. Trudeau’s chief of staff. “It’s women like that, that we need in politics,” Ms. Telford thought, according to Catherine Tsalikis’s Chrystia: From Peace River to Parliament Hill.
In her career, Ms. Freeland has put up with all kinds of garbage no man would ever experience. In 2000, Ms. Freeland met with Vladimir Putin to report on a Globe and Mail story. She was pregnant with her first child. Mr. Putin rubbed her belly and said he hoped the baby would become a hockey star.
Once in politics, she was criticized for the sound of her voice, for being too emotional.
When Mr. Trudeau spoke to reporters about his gender-equal “because it’s 2015″ cabinet, Ms. Freeland was standing right behind him – a position she would continue to occupy, metaphorically, for years, beginning as International Trade Minister and ultimately rising to Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister – “the most powerful woman in Canadian politics,” as Ms. Tsalikis writes.
But that was the time of sunny ways. Now we are in dark days.
Mr. Carney is the right leader for this time. Ms. Freeland should be a valuable resource for him – and this country.