The protesters jumped onto the stage and rushed towards Christia Freeland, screaming within inches of her face.
She didn't flinch.
Her January liberal leadership and even the launch of a campaign for Canadian leadership were confusing, but the encounter was not able to effectively land a stump speech.
Freeland, a career journalist in Alberta who rose to become a top politician through elite institutions, runs to replace her with Justin Trudeau, who took her into politics.
On Sunday, Canada's Liberal Party will announce the results of the election of a new leader selected by 400,000 members. The winner will also be Canadian Prime Minister, but it won't last long. The party does not lead a majority in Parliament, so it knows its power. Federal elections must take place by October.
Freeland's dramatic December resignation of finance minister, deputy prime minister and Trudeau, all-right-handed woman to plunge Canada into political turmoil and sparked his own decision to resign.
This is coming when Canada is in crisis. This week, President Trump did something good about his threat of imposing tariffs that would be wiped out on Canadian goods, and eased some of those measures on Thursday, but made it clear that he will continue to attack Canada's economy at an additional fee.
Canada retaliated and took part in an uneven trade war with its closest economic partners. Trump also argues that he wants to threaten Canada in a more existential way and turn it into a 51st state.
Factory Grist
Canadians rate political leaders based on who are best to fight Trump for Canada, the vote shows. Freeland, 56, is a weak person. She runs against a friend who is a former central bank Mark Kearney, a front runner.
Trump repeatedly expressed his disgust for Freeland.
During his first presidency, she led the Canadian side in renegotiation of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement. On all accounts, she drove tough bargains and won Canadian concessions.
When she announced she was resigning in December, Trump posted, “Her behavior was completely toxic.”
And last week, he doubled in an interview with the British outlet “Audience.” “She's a bang,” he said. “She's absolutely terrible for this country.”
However, Freeland seems to be enjoying the fight.
“Donald Trump doesn't like me very much,” she says with a smile at one of the ads. On her Instagram, she posted an article in The New York Times about Trump lightly paring her, adding a light mis-style caption: manicure emojis.
“When it comes to the biggest challenges facing Canada, I have a strategy when I fight for Canada and stand up to Trump,” she said in an interview with the Times at her Toronto home last month.
And despite her resentment, she praised him. “I have a lot of respect for President Trump,” she said. “He is not afraid of being a destroyer, he knows how to give it glory and use it for his own benefit. And in many situations, it works.”
Less enthusiastic critics have seen Freeland's efforts to distinguish Mr Trudeau from being too late and have held her responsibility for his central role in his current unpopular government.
Liberal rise
Freeland had a modest childhood where she was raised by divorced parents and worked for a long time on a family farm in Edmonton, where her mother, a Peace River in Alberta and her Ukrainian immigrant, worked as a lawyer.
Freeland won a scholarship at the age of 16 and graduated from high school at an Italian selective international school. She later studied at Harvard University and was an Oxford Rhodes scholar.
While at Harvard, she spent time in Ukraine as an exchange student and became involved in the early independence movements of Ukraine. Her behaviorism reportedly caught the KGB's eye.
The declassified KGB documents showed that the Soviet intelligence agency disliked and praised her and called her a “surprising individual.” According to reports from around the world.
She has risen within the ranks of some of the most venerable institutions of international journalism, serving as a senior editor at Financial Times and Reuters, and has served as a short assignment in the Globe and mail in Canada.
Freeland is married to Graham Bowley, a reporter at the New York Times culture desk. They have three children.
Former colleagues and friends describe her as highly active and obviously unadorned. Many of her home's furniture are second-hand. Most of her living room surfaces are covered in books, and Ukrainian art is hanging from the walls. She is known to ride her bike anywhere, regardless of the weather. She abandons security.
All Ministers
In 2013, after Trudeau persuaded her to run as a Liberal candidate, she moved her family from New York to Toronto.
He had just been selected as leader, and the party was in ruins and stuck in third place. Freeland takes pride in creating what she calls “symbol and high-risk decisions,” and leaving journalism to bad states was one of them.
“I called a lot of people, my friends, my lifelong mentors, and who's advice was 'Don't do that',” she said.
Freeland won her seat, and within two years Trudeau had returned the party from death. She was by his side in 2015, sworn as prime minister.
She worked in important jobs, including the Foreign and Finance Ministers. Ottawa's joke was that she was his “my minister of all.” Her ruthless energy and grasp of technical issues distinguished her, but her detractors said she said she was mean or hard in public.
She was heavily criticized for suggesting that people cancel their Disney+ subscription in response to the affordable crisis. Despite her own commitment to financial discipline, Freeland oversaw a significant amount of spending.
She remains loyal to Mr Trudeau, even as Canadians began to turn him on, and her main role in government became a burden as she tried to separate herself from his legacy.
“People know there's a difference between playing on a team and leading a team,” she said, adding that she's proud of the work she's done in government.
Family drama
The end of her collaboration with Trudeau remains a mystery.
Trudeau told Freeland on a Zoom Call in December that she would demote her to US Canada envoy and hand her job as finance minister to unelected Carney.
Freeland and Trudeau were at odds over spending. He believed some of his moves to ease the economic burden on Canadians were frivolous and politically motivated. She wanted to save money to deal with Trump's tariffs, but she thought it was inevitable.
She resigned shortly after the Zoom call.
It was the final blow for Mr Trudeau, despite his unpopularity, who was a liberal leader and intended to bring his party to the next federal election.
Freeland said he doesn't think his resignation would lead to Trudeau.
“When I resigned on the morning of December 16th, my assumption was that the next day Mark would become the Minister of Finance,” she said in an interview with the Times. “And I think the Prime Minister also thought that.”
Trudeau has not commented on the event, nor does Carney disagree with the interview.
Freeland's campaign is reconstructing new images outside of Trudeau's shadow. She unleashed the policy plan and broke it with Mr Trudeau with the controversial carbon tax he defended.
And she tried to present herself as a grassroots rather than an elite candidate, as most of Trudeau's cabinet support Kearney.
“The failure of the centre on the left is that it's a bit too much with Technocratica, and that Technocratica can act like he has all the answers,” she said.
One of the first decisions she makes if she wins is to decide when to hold a federal election. She's not in a hurry.
“If we look at the situation in March and further challenges in April, we may decide as Prime Minister and as the Liberal Party. Frankly, it may be the view of Canadians. Canada would be better off having a stable government for several months.”
Above all, regarding her youngest child, Mr. Carney, she has been careful not to attack him.
“I have a lot of respect for Mark,” she said. “I would be really happy if he were to serve as finance minister in my government.”
