by NICK TAYLOR-VAISEY
Chrystia Freeland is fighting for Ukraine — and for political survival.
Chrystia Freeland is in her element in Davos. That was obvious when Canada’s deputy prime minister and finance minister — one woman, two jobs — jetted to the Alpine village in January to rally support for Ukraine from global influencers she’s known for 30 years.
On a panel meant to bolster Western solidarity with Ukraine, Freeland traded remarks with the Polish foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, whom she first met in her Kyiv apartment in 1991, and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, whom she met in London decades ago (she thinks they were introduced by Pulitzer-winning journalist Anne Applebaum).
That week, at cocktails and on stage and in private conversations, she caught up with old friends and pushed an ambitious goal: To persuade war-weary allies to seize Russian central bank assets and then redirect those riches to rebuilding Ukraine, never mind the legal and diplomatic risks.
But as she fought to keep Ukraine’s bid for independence alive, her government was listing towards defeat, raising questions about her own political future.
She was wheels up for Switzerland when the latest bad-news poll dropped: Freeland’s Liberal Party, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, trailed the Conservative Party by 11 points, a gap that has only worsened since. Freeland’s role in that slide is impossible to ignore. Her economic policy in the aftermath of the pandemic has failed to mollify anxious and cash-strapped Canadians.
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