Mark Carney gains four more key endorsements in Liberal leadership race
Mark Carney speaks during his Liberal leader campaign launch in Edmonton, on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. File photo by The Canadian Press/Jason Franson
Liberal leadership hopeful Mark Carney has secured the endorsements of four more current and former cabinet ministers.
On Tuesday, Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Minister Gary Anandasangaree and former housing minister Sean Fraser all threw their support behind Carney on social media.
"He's literally one of the most respected voices on the economy worldwide, and he's a fundamentally decent person who cares an awful lot about the country that we all love," Fraser said in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter.
The Liberals will choose a new leader on March 9 to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who announced this month he will resign following immense pressure from his caucus.
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault also endorsed Carney Tuesday while speaking to reporters at the Liberal cabinet retreat in Montebello, Que.
"I've known Mark for many years. We've worked together on issues of green energy, transition, fighting climate change and the role of the financial sector in fighting climate change," Guilbeault told reporters, adding he's had no discussions with Carney about a potential cabinet post.
"I will continue to work with Mr. Carney to ensure that if we don't go ahead with the consumer carbon price, that we have something else in place that will both help Canadians with affordability, but that will help us to achieve our 2030 targets."
While Carney hasn't said explicitly he'd drop consumer carbon pricing if he wins the leadership, he has hinted at a policy shift by saying that if the carbon price is going to go, it must be replaced “with something that is at least, if not more, effective.”
His stance on industrial carbon pricing is less clear.
"If we don't move ahead with consumer carbon pricing, one obvious answer would be to tighten a system that we already have ... for large polluters in the country," Guilbeault said.
Asked how Carney's stance on carbon pricing compares to that of his leadership rival Chrystia Freeland — the former finance minister has indicated she would abandon consumer carbon pricing because it's unpopular with Canadians — Guilbeault said he wasn't aware of Freeland's plan and couldn't comment on it.
"What I can say is the person, in my view, by far the best placed to articulate a concrete plan on the question on the role of carbon pricing and the role of financial markets in the fight against climate change is Mark Carney," Guilbeault said in French.
The Conservatives issued a release saying that Guilbeault’s support for Carney is “proof” that the former banker would be aligned with Trudeau’s policy on carbon pricing.
“The fact that Guilbeault endorsed Carney is a clear signal that Canadians will get stuck with the devastating carbon tax if Carney ever becomes prime minister,” it reads, noting that Carney has a long record of advocating for carbon pricing.
In addition to Carney and Freeland, four other individuals have declared an intention to run, including former Government House leader Karina Gould, current Liberal MPs Chandra Arya and Jaime Battiste, and former Liberal MP Frank Baylis.
Carney appears to be ahead of the pack on key endorsements, with at least eight current or former cabinet ministers in his corner now, including Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan, who backed him earlier this week. At least 20 other Liberal MPs have also backed Carney at this point.
Freeland has the backing of more than a dozen backbench Liberal MPs and at least seven current or former cabinet ministers, including Health Minister Mark Holland, Justice Minister Arif Virani, Citizens Services Minister Terry Beech, and former ministers Dan Vandal, Randy Boissonnault, Diane Lebouthillier and Marie-Claude Bibeau.
MPs Lisa Hepfner and Pam Damoff have both endorsed Gould, and attended her public launch on Sunday.
Candidates have until Thursday to declare their intention to run and pay an initial, refundable $50,000 deposit. As of Tuesday no candidates had paid the fee.
The Liberal party also says it has tweaked the financing rules for leadership candidates ahead of that deadline. The party says that because banks sometimes issue holds on cheques, it will accept a sworn affidavit stating that a candidate has enough money to cover the deposit, pending the release of any money that's being held up.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 21, 2025.
January 22nd 2025
Comments
While I'm sure Carney is pleased with the endorsements, he is running to be captain of a sinking ship!
Maybe, maybe not. Poilievre was positioned by chance to take advantage of a divided opposition and an unpopular PM. Trudeau is suddenky no longer in the frame. The Conservatives saw their biggest legit target vanish before their very eyes. And now there stands Carney, a polished outside intellect not tarnished by Liberal misdeeds and perceived sins.
If Carney wins, the pundits will be seeing him and Poilievre square up face to face. The favourable comparison is ridiculously lopsided toward Carney on real world experience. The Conservatives will find it impossible to find anyone, let aline a genuine economist of equal merit, to put forth any viable Conservative plan to face a looming economic crisis forced onto the nation by Trump.
Beyond dealing with the immediate Trumpian chaos, in lengthy interviews Carney has described a vision of Canada founded in sound economics to specifically fight climate change. He's been thinking about that for years, and it's the best one currently put out there by anyone else.
Looking at his CV, it's also clear that he's dealt extensively with two previous international crises 2008 meltdown and Brexit), not as a corporare investment banker and Davos Man, but as a civil servant who actually regulated private banks and helped set ibterest rates. He's worked both sides of the counter and it's hard to find a person who is better positioned than anyone else in government to find a path through confusion, to work with every vested entity and on top of it all, to articulate a plan for the future.
Carney ate Poilievre's lunch long before the contest has even begun.
[Sorry for the typos. Commenting remotely with big fingers on a tiny phone screen, and no CNO comment edit button.]
Poilievre being ANYWHERE on ANY list of qualified leaders for this country, especially during the chaos that will be Trump 2.0, is not only an absolute triumph of "marketing" like no other, it's also proof positive that subliminal advertising does indeed work like a charm.
And one of the most dangerous features of this worldwide race to the bottom that right-wing populists are currently engaged in by stubbornly and insanely INSISTING on denying the science/reality of climate change, despite it manifesting right before their eyes, is JUST how stupidly defensive people are of their various "opinions."
An additional noxious feature of these people is JUST how completely oblivious THEY insist on being to the possibility of being HAD by the algorithms, misinformation, and disinformation fed to them that amounts to MALINFORMATION, straight up. i.e. delivered with malice aforethought to manipulate MILLIONS.
And for those who can at least recognize the vast chasm between Poilievre and Carney, why so attracted nonetheless to the bandwagon that is utter capitulation to basic lies, starting with the utter BS of "axe the tax?"
Indeed. I think Poilievre will likely wave the white flag to his former object of worship. It must be painful to see your primary political target disappear and likely replaced by a sharp intellect with an extensive resume while your orange TV preacher man starts to wind up to really slap you hard for no apparent reason other than you're standing in his sight.