Chrystia Freeland responds during question period in June. The former cabinet minister says she will resign her seat effective Friday.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Former cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland ended months of speculation about her future as an MP, saying she is resigning effective Friday.
Her decision to put a date on her departure follows criticism that she was in a conflict of interest for accepting a voluntary role advising Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while still a parliamentarian.
Initially, she said she would resign in “the coming weeks,” but in a statement posted to social media late Wednesday, she said she has now written to the Speaker of the House of Commons to say she will vacate her seat on Friday.
“Going forward I will continue to support and help build Canada in every way I can, while championing the brave fight of the people of Ukraine, a cause I have been committed to my entire life,” she wrote.
Her departure will require Prime Minister Mark Carney to call a by-election within six months. Ms. Freeland’s riding of University-Rosedale is considered a safe Liberal seat. She won in April with 64 per cent of the vote.
Until the by-election to replace Ms. Freeland, the House will have 342 members of Parliament, instead of 343, and the Liberals remain one seat shy of a majority.
Mr. Carney kept her in cabinet as transport and internal trade minister, but she resigned from those roles in the fall and was appointed his special representative for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
At the time, she said she would not be seeking re-election but would remain an MP.
She has, however, been widely expected to resign this year.
In November, the Rhodes Trust announced that she will be their next chief executive officer, beginning in July. The British organization administers one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious scholarships.
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She is also expected to become a senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Her appointment by Mr. Zelensky, however, generated intense criticism: Conservative MPs and ethics watchdogs argued that holding both positions at the same time amounted to a conflict of interest, and no parliamentarian ought to also be advising a foreign government.
The Ethics Commissioner’s Office declined to comment.
“This is a volunteer position, and I have consulted throughout with the Ethics Commissioner and followed his advice,” Ms. Freeland said in her statement Wednesday. After she resigns, Ms. Freeland will be governed by the Conflict of Interest Act’s postemployment restrictions.
She had told Mr. Carney about the offer from Mr. Zelensky in December, saying she felt that she could be more useful to Ukraine by working directly with the government.
“My judgment was that taking that role would be consistent with resigning as an MP and I welcomed her doing that,” Mr. Carney told reporters in Paris Tuesday. “I’m pleased for Ukraine.”
Carney says Freeland’s decision to accept Ukraine role ‘consistent’ with plans to resign as MP
Mr. Carney told reporters this week that he did not ask her to stay to help support his fragile minority government.
“We’ll have a by-election,” Mr. Carney said.
“There’ll be a few by-elections coming up, and we will run great candidates, and the people in those ridings will decide who they want to send to Parliament.”
Other Liberal MPs have been expected to step aside for diplomatic postings, but those jobs have not been confirmed.
Ms. Freeland, whose mother was Ukrainian, has been an advocate for the country for decades.
In Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, she served in numerous roles, including as finance minister and deputy prime minister. She was at the forefront of a global decision to freeze Russian assets as punishment for its invasion of Ukraine, and for that money to be put toward assisting the besieged country.
She quit Mr. Trudeau’s cabinet in December, 2024, over a disagreement about the fiscal plans for Canada. She ran in the contest to replace him but lost to Mr. Carney.
“It has been an immense honour to serve my constituents and all Canadians in Parliament since 2013,” she said Wednesday.