Why I am even more enthusiastic in support of Chrystia Freeland on February 16, with a vote on March 9.

“The liberal leadership race is over-- Mr. Carney has it-- and no one is talking about either Chrystia Freeland or Karina Gould,” declares Bob Fife, Ottawa Bureau Chief for the Globe and Mail,  on CTV’s Question Period.

“The liberal leadership race is Mr. Carney’s to lose,” intones pollster Nik Nanos on the same program.

Rob Benzie, Queen’s Park Bureau Chief for the Toronto Star, reminds us that the Liberals are known for their preference for a 'winner'…. “and yet no one is talking these days about Michael Ignatieff nor Stephane Dion” both of whom were supposed to be saviours of the Liberal Party.

While Ms Gould repeatedly reminds Liberals ‘we do not want a coronation!’ the prospect of a coronation of a ‘governor’ of two central banks, in Canada and in Great Britain has taken much of the party by storm. As one male voter puts it, ‘I am voting on his resume as the best chance to win the next election.’ A female voter puts it this way, “I really want to vote for Chrystia Freeland, but I am afraid that the Liberals might not win the election, as compared with the chances offered by Mr. Carncy.”

Electoral victory, in the national election expected shortly after the leadership vote, seems very important to many, and a highly qualified male candidate seems to have garnered MP support, Cabinet support and many new memberships in the party…all of this highly commendable.

Canadian novelist and social critic, Margaret Atwood, reminds us in her pithy insight:

“We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.”

Chrystia Freeland is, we can all agree, a powerful woman. She has served as Deputy-Prime Minister in the Liberal government, served as international journalist and written a provocative work entitled, Plutocrats, the Rise of the New Global super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, is fluent in five languages, and brings her early childhood life on the prairies, parented by two lawyer parents who separated when she was nine. A graduate of more than a few colleges and universities, Ms Freeland brings a global perspective and experience, as well as a deeply intimate consciousness of the plight of the voiceless and the powerless. Her maternal grandparents fled Ukraine in 1939; her mother was born in an American Army-run refugee camp in Germany. Ms Freeland speaks fluent Ukrainian in addition to English, French, Russian and Italian. She and her family, parents and three sisters found refuge in Canada, like many other Ukrainians.

As a journalist, she worked for the Financial Times, the Economist, and the Washington Post, eventually heading the FT Moscow bureau. She was deputy editor of the Globe and Mail, and the Financial Times, and then managing editor of the Financial Times in 2010, when she returned to Thomson Reuters as managing editor and editor of consumer news. In 2013, Ms Freeland gave a Ted Talk on global income inequality.

She is definitely not an anomaly! And it is this stereotype, at least in part, that might be part of the cultural context of the public ‘adulation’ of the honourable and highly qualified Mr. Carney. However, it was former President Barack Obama who, in a conference in Singapore in 2019, made these comments:

“If women were put in charge of every country…there would be far less war, kids would be better taken care of and there would be a general improvement in living standards and outcomes.”

He continued, at the same conference; “If you look at the world and look at the problems, it’s usually old people, usually old men, not getting out of the way. They cling to power, they are insecure, they have outdated ideas and the energy and fresh vision and new approaches are squashed. Now women, I just want you to know, you are not perfect, but what I can say pretty indisputably is that you’re better than us men…What we need, in terms of global leadership, is people who are comfortable with and understand complexities…but that, of course,, requires citizens to be comfortable with complexity. Part of the challenge we have as humans is that when things get complicated and confusing we tend to want to block it out and look for simply answers, so we are oftentimes, getting the leadership reflects our own insecurities and problems.

No one can argue that things are not complicated, confusing and that we default to simply answers…..and compound the complexities and the confusion.

Canada, like much of the world, faces serious crises, of economic, geopolitical, military, environmental, jurisdictional, legal and democratic natures…not only separately but in a convergence that is new to all of us. It is the mind, courage, heart and discipline of a woman, in this case, Chrystia Freeland, who, in a straight-forward truth-telling, public speaking style, careful and sensitive to the much more than literal implications of her words, offers Canada a new vision, not only through her specific and detailed policies, but more importantly, in and through her very person, a formidable woman, a model for every young woman and girl in the world to emulate.

Sometimes leaders have to say things that people do not want to hear…and sometimes the politically correct constraints make such tellings less than sexy and palatable….and yet, they need to be said. With the cross-winds of tensions about the future of Ukraine, and thus the future of European security, the future of NATO, the WHO, the global environment, the rise of oligarchies of white nationalist supremacists, the ugliness of Israeli-Palestinian hatred and distrust, the proliferation of lies and disinformation and the need to reinforce international institutions….Canada’s future includes her vigorous, creative, courageous and principled participation on the world stage, while we also take care of business at home.

Chrystia Freeland is the candidate who offers the most comprehensive resume, the most varied experience and the demonstrated proof of her time in the trenches of politics as my choice for leader of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister. We need not only to be grateful for her contributions already delivered; we need to envision her voice, face, insightful mind and profound courage as our representative on a world stage that is fraught with complexities and confusion. She is the candidate who is most comfortable with and who understands complexities….and we need her now!