A little background on Chrystia Freeland, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister&threat to the Soviet Union

[Swede]

snip

Ms. Freeland, and her ilk, were a threat to the Soviet Union – but one which had to be handled delicately: Treating her too harshly could give credence to the “libellous” stories told in Ukrainian émigré communities about how the KGB treated national minorities in the Soviet Union.

According to the KGB, Ms. Freeland was more than just an agitator for, as Col. Stroi derisively put it, “the liberation of Ukraine” who coerced Soviet citizens into staging marches and rallies to attract Western support. She delivered cash, video- and audio-recording equipment, and even a personal computer to her contacts in Ukraine.

All of this took place under the watchful eye of the KGB, which surveilled Ms. Freeland. Its officers tailed her wherever she went; tapped her phone calls to Ukrainians abroad; bugged her accommodation; read her mail; and had an informer, codenamed Slav, insert himself into Ms. Freeland’s circle and gain the young Canadian’s trust.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-kgb-archives-show-how-chrystia-freeland-drew-the-ire-and-respect-of/

[applegrove]

1. She can't enter Russia. She is blocked. I think they really admire her. I hope she becomes

PM one day.

[Swede]

2. And both Trump and Putin hate her guts.

I like that.

[appalachiablue]

5. Got it! I've liked her for years, read an article about Plutocrats book 2012

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/nov/01/plutocrats-super-rich-freeland-review

[Swede]

4. oops

thanks

[badhair77]

6. When she was with Financial Times she was on tv often. I always liked her then.

[liberalla]

9. I used to see her fairly regularly on McLaughlin Group...

and yes, I liked her too.

[BlueWavePsych]

7. RESPECT

[crickets]

8. Fascinating individual - thanks, Swede.

Also, I had no idea of the impact Ukraine has had in Canada's politics.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-how-ukrainian-politics-became-the-most-canadian-of-politics/

A century before the country of Ukraine came into existence, in the early 1890s, Ukrainians became Canada’s first really major non-Western immigrant group. They did not share a language, a culture or a religion with existing populations; they were also the first immigrants who overwhelmingly stayed in Canada rather than moving south of the border.

Almost from the beginning, Canadian leaders realized that they needed to make the Ukrainians’ interests, and their relationship to their homeland, part of the Canadian political vocabulary.

After a second wave of Ukrainians arrived in the 1930s, fleeing Stalin’s horrors, Canadian leaders began to speak of their role using a new language of pluralism. In 1936, governor-general Lord Tweedsmuir – also known as Scottish novelist John Buchan – gave a landmark speech to a crowd of Ukrainian-Canadians in Fraserwood, Man., promoting his notion of British Empire multiculturalism: “You will all be better Canadians for being also good Ukrainians … the strongest nations are those that are made up of different racial elements.”

In other words, more than a decade before Canadian citizenship came into existence, officials were inspired by the Ukrainian experience to promote a hyphenated form of Canadianism.

Though that political history was not always so rosy as the picture this article seems to paint.

Ukrainian Canadians: Internment (1914–1920)

The entire page is an engrossing read. Today I learned.