Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s former deputy prime minister, kicked off her bid to lead Canada by boasting: “Donald Trump doesn’t like me very much” in a campaign video that quickly went viral.
For Freeland, who led Canada’s re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade agreement (Nafta) with the United States and Mexico during Trump’s first term, video of Trump disparaging her for being a tough negotiator is a selling point.
Trump’s plans to impose massive tariffs, and open musing about incorporating Canada into the United States, has stirred nationalist resentment across the political spectrum in the country, with even the Conservative leader of Ontario, Doug Ford, recently photographed wearing a “Canada Is Not For Sale” cap.
Continuing the theme, Freeland said later in the video that Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader she would face as Liberal party leader in a general election this year, would “bow down to Trump, and sell us out”.
Freeland, a former journalist who also led Canada’s tough trade talks with the European Union, in English and French, made her anti-Trump humblebrag the centerpiece of her case to French-speaking Canadian voters as well.
Both the English and French versions of the campaign video amplify the patriotic theme by closing with a graphic that renders the candidate’s name as “Free Land” in the red and white of the Canadian flag, with the shadow of a maple leaf over the letter A.
