2023 Federal Budget with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland

About the speaker:

The Honourable Chrystia Freeland is Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. 

Ms. Freeland was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre in July, 2013. She was elected as Member of Parliament for University—Rosedale in October, 2015 and re-elected in October, 2019 and in September, 2021. 

From 2015 to 2017, Ms. Freeland served as Canada's Minister of International Trade, overseeing the successful negotiation of Canada's free trade agreement with the European Union, CETA. From January, 2017 to November, 2019, she served as Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. During this time, she was a leading advocate for democracy, human rights, and multilateralism around the world. 

As Foreign Minister, she led and successfully concluded the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, Mexico, and the United States. 

In November, 2019, Ms. Freeland was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. In this capacity, she led Canada’s united response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In her role as Minister of Finance, to which she was appointed in August, 2020, the Deputy Prime Minister has supported the Canadian economy’s strong recovery from the pandemic recession, led the introduction of Canada’s first national system of affordable early learning and child care, and returned Canada’s finances to a sustainable footing after the winding-down of emergency pandemic spending. 

An esteemed journalist and author, the Deputy Prime Minister was born in Peace River, Alberta. She was educated at Harvard University before continuing her studies on a Rhodes Scholarship at the University of Oxford. 

After launching her career in journalism as a Ukraine-based freelance correspondent for the Financial Times, The Washington Post, and The Economist, Ms. Freeland went on to various roles at the Financial Times of London. She then served as deputy editor of the Toronto-based Globe and Mail between 1999 and 2001, before returning to the Financial Times as deputy editor and then as United States managing editor. 

In 2010, she joined Canadian-owned Thomson Reuters. She was a managing director of the company and editor of consumer news when she decided to return home and enter politics in 2013. 

Ms. Freeland has written two books: Sale of the Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution (2000); and Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else (2012). Plutocrats has been an international best-seller and won the Lionel Gelber Prize and National Business Book Award. 

In 2018, the Deputy Prime Minister was recognized as Foreign Policy's Diplomat of the Year. She was also awarded the Eric M. Warburg Award by Atlantik-Brücke, for her achievements in strengthening transatlantic ties. In 2020, she was awarded Freedom House’s Mark Palmer Prize, in recognition of her years of work in championing democracy and human rights.

Roles and responsibilities of the Deputy Prime Minister

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance works closely with the Prime Minister in both setting and fulfilling the Government’s agenda. This includes overseeing the country’s finances and economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

She is the Vice-Chair of the Cabinet Committee on Agenda, Results and Communications, which is chaired by the Prime Minister. The Deputy Prime Minister is an ex-officio member of all Cabinet Committees.