Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland may have just been caught spreading some unfortunate misinformation when she posted about Emancipation Day on Tuesday.
Freeland said that slavery was abolished in Canada 189 years ago. Twitter/X users, including energy sector analyst Melissa Mbarki, were quick to point out that 189 years ago is a full 33 years before Canada as a country existed.
The Deputy Prime Minister has on occasion been accused of being “tone-deaf” and “out-of-touch” for remarks she makes in an attempt to connect with and show that she empathizes with the everyday Canadian.
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This time, she was likely pertaining to how slavery was abolished in the land that would later become Canada. But — like forgetting to say that while she walked and used her bike as much as possible, especially in her private life, she also uses her taxpayer-funded car and chauffeur for official business — she missed a few crucial details.
Emancipation Day commemorates the day that the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 actually came into effect across the British Empire in 1834 — of which the land that on July 1, 1867 would become the Dominion of Canada was part.
The House of Commons designated the first of August as the official day for celebration. In Canada, contrary to what Freeland’s post suggests, this day is celebrated not only for the emancipation of Black slaves, but also of Indigenous slaves who made up over half or 2,683 of the recorded 4,185 slaves from the mid-1700s to 1834.
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