A way out for Freeland, with others likely to follow

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Chrystia Freeland found the way out. It was an elegant solution to a political problem that had to be solved.

Canada’s new government, as the Liberal marketing team contrives to call Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ministry, has a lot riding on being seen as new. Their political strategy relies on being seen as something other than Justin Trudeau’s old government. Ms. Freeland’s departure won’t be the last. Mr. Carney will still be looking to remake the cabinet in his image.

Despite her role in ending Mr. Trudeau’s tenure as prime minister, Ms. Freeland was the minister most prominently associated with him. She spent a decade in his cabinet, the last five as an alter ego, the deputy prime minister, one step behind Mr. Trudeau at a news conference, nodding approval for his words.

When it came time for Mr. Carney to make a postelection cabinet in the spring, Ms. Freeland wasn’t going to be at the front. She couldn’t be finance minister again, or foreign affairs minister − or dealing with Canada-U.S. trade, since U.S President Donald Trump reviled her.

So it was Transport. After being at the heart of power, that’s Triple-A ball.

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Now Ms. Freeland is leaving. She’s out of cabinet, out of the centre of Mr. Carney’s government. She won’t run in the next election. She made a point of rejecting the sappy stock phrase about leaving to spend more time with family.

Instead, she will take a role as Mr. Carney’s special representative to Ukraine, which for Canadians is a popular cause. Ms. Freeland, a Ukrainian-Canadian, has long been the driving force behind the Liberal government’s commitment to Ukraine.

But she’s not quite leaving. She is sticking around as an MP for University-Rosedale, at least for now. Apparently, this is not the time for a by-election, even in a safe Liberal seat in Toronto.

Perhaps that’s because Ms. Freeland is not the only ghost of Liberal governments past knocking around the halls of Parliament.

The Globe and Mail reported earlier this month that Mr. Carney is considering appointing two former cabinet ministers in Mr. Trudeau’s government to senior diplomatic posts. It’s a good bet that the eventual by-election for Ms. Freeland’s Toronto seat will be one of a batch, an opportunity to bring in fresh blood, and possibly new ministers.

It was telling whom Mr. Carney tapped to take on Ms. Freeland’s two cabinet roles on an interim basis: Dominic LeBlanc, the lead minister on Canada-U.S. trade, and Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon.

Apart from Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson, an old friend of the Prime Minister’s, Mr. LeBlanc and Mr. MacKinnon seem to be the only ministers in whom Mr. Carney has solid confidence. The PM is said to be frustrated with many around him.

There have already been two Mark Carney cabinets, one named in March after he became Prime Minister and a second in May after the Liberals won the spring election. They were mostly made from Mr. Trudeau’s team, however. There hadn’t been a lot of time to recruit new Liberal candidates.

Now Mr. Carney can make some opportunities to recruit. And to redesign the cabinet with more ministers that fit his mould.

For Ms. Freeland, at any rate, there wasn’t room for more in Canadian politics.

As chief trade negotiator during Mr. Trump’s first term, she played a major role in reaching a deal that for Canada was only a modest weakening of the North American free-trade agreement. But her most consequential legacy is likely to be the subsidized child-care policy she championed both as social program and economic-growth policy.

She was easily the second-most prominent figure of Justin Trudeau’s tenure but took the fatal step that ended it: As journalists gathered to read her fall economic statement last December, she instead posted a letter of resignation that criticized Mr. Trudeau for insisting on unserious economic policies.

Even among Liberals, she mostly won kudos for landing that sudden mortal blow to Mr. Trudeau’s premiership. Most thought it past due. Yet that didn’t help her in the Liberal leadership race that followed, a race that was in large part about turning the page on Mr. Trudeau. His long-serving deputy was never going to represent change.

That was Mr. Carney’s problem, too. He couldn’t place Ms. Freeland at the centre. In a new role, she found an elegant way out.