She played a critical role in the Canadian response to the Russo-Ukrainian War, including the implementation of sanctions on Russia and sending aid to Ukraine after the invasion in 2022.

She translated the stories of locals who had witnessed covered trucks and "puddles of blood in the road" that predated the Nazi invasion, adding evidence that the site was actually the result of Stalinist repression.

[1] While there she attracted the attention of the KGB, which tagged her with the code name "Frida", and Soviet newspapers, who attacked her as a foreigner meddling in their internal affairs over her contacts with Ukrainian activists.

The KGB surveilled Freeland and tapped her phone calls, and documented the young Canadian activist delivering money, video and audio recording equipment, and a personal computer to contacts in Ukraine.

[27] Prior to that she was the global editor-at-large of Reuters news since March 1, 2010,[28] having formerly been the United States managing editor at the Financial Times, based in New York City.

Freeland is the author of Sale of the Century: Russia's Wild Ride from Communism to Capitalism (2000),[22] as well as Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else (2012).

[31] The book chronicles the challenges that the "young reformers" championing capitalism such as Anatoly Chubais and Yegor Gaidar had in wresting control of Russian industry out of the hands of the communist "red barons".

She sought the nomination for the Liberal Party in Toronto Centre to replace Bob Rae, who was stepping down to become chief negotiator and counsel for the Matawa First Nations in Northern Ontario's Ring of Fire.

[38] During the demonstrations leading up to the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity, Freeland wrote an op-ed for The Globe and Mail, in which she excoriated the government of Viktor Yanukovych.

[49] She was involved in negotiations leading up to the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), between Canada and the European Union, former prime minister Stephen Harper's legacy project.

[52] With National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, Freeland announced Canada's military training mission in Ukraine would be extended until March 2019, maintaining the 200 soldiers previously mandated by the Harper government.

[53] That August, she instructed her department and officials to "energetically" review reports of Canadian-made Terradyne military vehicles being used against civilians in Shia-populated city of Al-Awamiyah by Saudi Arabian security forces.

[54] The government briefly suspended Terradyne's export permits to Saudi Arabia before reinstating them; a Canadian investigation stated that it "found no conclusive evidence that Canadian-made vehicles were used in human rights violations".

[60][61] In September 2018, Freeland raised the issue of Xinjiang internment camps and human rights abuses against the Uyghurs in a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

As deputy prime minister, Freeland was entrusted with several key planks of Trudeau's domestic policy such as strengthening Medicare, implementing Canada's national climate strategy, introducing firearms regulations, developing a pan-Canadian child care system, facilitating interprovincial free trade, and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

[69] As minister of intergovernmental affairs, her primary task was to address renewed tensions between the federal government and the western provinces, most notably with the rise of Alberta separatism.

[74] In her new capacity, she was responsible for handling regional issues such as western alienation—particularly in Alberta and Saskatchewan where the Liberals had failed to win a single seat—as well as the resurgence of the Bloc Québécois.

Although banks were granted immunity against civil suits from customers, Freeland insisted, during a press conference, that Charter rights remained in place.

[85] In response to a question about the 2021–2023 inflation surge from the Parliamentary Press Gallery, Freeland encouraged Canadians to “cut that Disney+ subscription” to deal with the resulting cost-of-living crisis.

[89] As Finance Minister, Freeland promoted programs such as the First Home Savings Account and Homebuyers' Plan, intended to make housing more affordable amidst the Canadian property bubble.

[97] When asked on December 13 about reports that Trudeau wanted to replace her and about his unwillingness to publicly support her, Freeland stated her focus was on serving Canadians and not "Ottawa gossip".

[98][99] Following her resignation, opposition party leaders Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh announced their support for a vote of no confidence, which would trigger a general election.

She explains that they are "hard working, highly educated, jet-setting meritocratic who feel they are the deserving winners of a tough worldwide economic competition—and many of them, as a result, have an ambivalent attitude toward those of us who didn't succeed so spectacularly."

Because of these trends, she argues that "the agricultural boom shows that globalization really is a two-way street, and not just for the geniuses at Apple and Goldman Sachs" but also as a means of helping sustain and grow the middle class.

[112] Freeland has praised the efforts of Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke and European Central Bank president Mario Draghi for respectively growing the American economy and strengthening the eurozone after the Great Recession.

On the other hand, she explains: "A lot of major investors harbor a different fear: that easy money is muffling ordinary market signals and thus creating dangerous—and dangerously invisible—bubbles.

She explains that this trend will lead to new winners in the global economy such as Brazil, while it could complicate domestic policies in other major oil producers and exporters such as Canada.

She instead argues that traditional revolutionary movements, such as the Bolsheviks, Solidarity, and the African National Congress, were centralized with a core of devoted members with the ability to act as a government-in-waiting.

[126] Freeland's mother, Halyna Chomiak, was born at a hospital administered by the US Army; her parents were staying at the displaced persons camp at the spa resort in Bad Wörishofen in Bavaria, Germany.

[129][130][131] In 2017, when Russian-affiliated websites, such as Russia Insider and New Cold War, further publicized Chomiak's connection to Nazism, Freeland and her spokespeople responded by claiming that this was a Russian disinformation campaign during her appointment to the position of minister of foreign affairs.