The field of likely candidates in the federal Liberal Party’s imminent leadership race has narrowed considerably since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his widely anticipated resignation 10 days ago.
Senior cabinet ministers highly rumoured to be mounting leadership bids have bowed out of the contest, citing the importance of staying the course in their current posts amid the largest threat to Canada’s sovereignty and economic prosperity in more than 75 years.
These are the main choices before Liberals in their moment of crisis, as they look ahead to a rapid leadership contest followed by the party’s most challenging election in its 157-year history:
Mark Carney: The White Knight
The quintessential Laurentian elite, Mark Carney has been courting Liberals since 2012 when there was first speculation he'd run against a spritely Trudeau for the Liberal leadership in the party’s last moment of crisis.
In 2021, Carney made his support for the party known at a virtual convention declaring: "I'll do anything I can to support the Liberal Party.” The public statement led many observers to conclude that he'd run in the federal election that year, but it wasn’t to be.
His qualifications and experience meet the “hinge moment” we find ourselves in, to borrow Carney’s own language. As the former Governor of the Bank of Canada and England, his economic bona fides are beyond reproach. Carney has never been a member of the Trudeau government and can legitimately chart a path forward for Liberals that is marked more by change than continuity.
Carney's chief challenge: he remains a political novice having never held public office. Can he demonstrate his partisan chops in a seven-week leadership race? Can he hit the ground running, as a prime minister without a seat and leader of a beleaguered party staring down imminent defeat in the House of Commons and to the Conservatives in a subsequent election? Carney’s recent tour de force performance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart provides some hints about how he would perform in a general election campaign.
Carney's critics assert that politics is a profession like any other, and one must hone retail political skills in the trenches before seeking the top prize. But Carney’s supporters believe he's a white knight: an antidote to a highly unpopular Trudeau — just as John Turner was fleetingly seen to be the remedy to the Pierre Trudeau era in the summer of 1984.
Chrystia Freeland: The Loyal Lieutenant-turned Maverick
There is no senior cabinet minister that has been more integral to the Trudeau government's successes and failures than Chrystia Freeland. She has been the Trudeau government’s "Minister of Everything” in the modern era, as C.D. Howe was in the Liberal governments of Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent in the mid-20th century.
Freeland has served as Trudeau's loyal lieutenant since day one when she won a 2013 Toronto by-election to join the third-place Liberals in Ottawa. Freeland's ideas as a prominent journalist and author formed the intellectual backbone of the Liberal agenda supporting the middle class.
Despite Freeland's bombshell departure last month, she remains extremely tied to the prime minister, weighted down by his mixed record. While Freeland deserves credit for exiting cabinet and issuing a public letter shrewdly articulating policy differences, the letter strained credulity among many Liberal partisans most likely to be active in this leadership race.
If Freeland genuinely disagreed with the government's fiscal approach, why did she remain Trudeau's loyal lieutenant until the eleventh hour? As Freeland and her team build her campaign, they would be wise to heed the age-old adage: "When you come at the king, you best not miss."
Karina Gould: The Progressive Millennial
Karina Gould will represent the party’s progressive wing at a time when Liberals are destined to pivot to the political centre. At 37, Gould is the youngest candidate and the only millennial to jump into the race. The mother of two young children made history as the youngest woman appointed to the federal cabinet and the first minister to take maternity leave.
Her entry into the race has already made a splash, given the significantly narrowed field of candidates vying for the Liberal Party’s top job. Gould has held a variety of senior posts in the Trudeau cabinet that have allowed her to showcase her progressive bona fides, most recently serving as Government House Leader in a tenuous minority Parliament.
As minister of Families, Children and Social Development, she spearheaded the Liberal government’s seminal national child-care program, shepherding agreements with the provinces and territories to make the program a reality. Gould’s progressive politics and relative youth will enable her to relate to younger people in this race amid growing anxieties around the cost of living and housing affordability among the under-40 demographic.
Young people voted overwhelmingly for Trudeau’s Liberals in 2015, but have since abandoned the party in droves. A July 2024 Abacus poll showed Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives leading the Liberals by a staggering 15 points among Canadians aged 18 to 35. While Gould’s longshot candidacy faces an uphill battle, she could represent the party’s best shot at mending its critical relationship with young people at a time of great economic uncertainty.
Liberals will have a new leader come March 9, and Canadians will have a new prime minister shortly thereafter. While the dynamics of this race will change over the coming seven weeks, watch for Mark Carney to take the early lead as the presumptive front-runner. May the best man/woman win.
Andrew Perez is a Principal at Perez Strategies and a Toronto-based Liberal strategist, political commentator and freelance writer.
Comments
With the election of Donald Trump the world is about to enter an even deeper state of chaos and danger in the next 4 years. Canada desperately needs an accomplished, intelligent leader with demonstrated expertise and understanding of the financial world and international relations. Labelling such individuals as "elite" plays into the hands of right wing populists, such as Pierre Poilievre, who possesses none of the above leadership qualities.
By the looks of the leadership, it's clear Karina Gould can give us a good surprise, based on your analysis. And I couldn't agree more. This is why I'm endorsing her.
I watched a lengthy podcast (posted three months back) with Mark Carney with the host of 'Uncommons' (posted on YouTube) and came away extremely impressed. I really wanted to find fault, but there wasn't much to hang a critical hat on.
The first thing to realize is that today's politics of rage have driven away so many really good, experienced people, so Mark Carney is a real light shining in the dark, the best political candidate in a generation in my view.
I think critics who call him a globalist (whatever that means ... my iMac was made in China, therefore I must be a globalist) or a neoliberal capitalist biased toward private multi-nationals are making a mistake. Sure, he worked in international private investment banks, but he also was a public servant in two countries serving during a couple of crisis periods and who regulated private banks and who heard all the rhetoric from both the left and the right over the years. He alsi believes in maintaining a strong public social safety net and supports recent Lib-NDP policies on child care and pharmacare.
He is deeply knowledgable in climate science and has clear ideas on how international finance and governments should help fight it. There is no one else in the federal political camp who comes close to the level of thought on what to do about climate change and how to do it nationally an internationally, though there are several elected progressives in several parties who are also knowledgable and motivated.
His ideas on fighting climate change through initiating a clean energy economy hit the nail on the head. He seems to be heading directly and deeply into zero emission renewables ("clean energy superpower" etc.) rather than focusing too much on tinkering with petro emissions. He talks about building and investing in new climate friendly infrastructure and planting public seed money to attract the right private companies into building and investing in it. I can see grants for renewable projects and electric rail transit going up under Carney. He believes AI can be developed in Canada into a powerful exportable tool to assist with R&D and sees a bright future in medical and other fields of science and technology. He wants to build "millions of homes" that are very energy efficient and that use fire-resistant materials, and recognizes the problem with inflation and a lack of housing affordability. He understands the insurance industry's data-based reaction to climate change, and sees their pulling out of areas subject to increasing numbers of hurricanes and drought / fire prone areas as a warning to the world's financial sector to redirect their resources into fighting climate change and supporting adaptation. He didn't exactly attack petroleum, but he certainly seems to be taking a strong tack toward an overall emissions lowering policy framework favouring renewables rather than the typical foot-in-both-camps action so far with the LPC under Trudeau.
What I especially liked about this guy is his being an affable outsider with deep real world experience. It really shows, and without arrogance. I think a few lessons in political showmanship and verbal delivery would help him weather the inevitable attacks, but other than that he is a self-described "builder" armed with expertise and motivation to genuinely build a better future.
Of course, the details of a Carney platform will emerge and could cause some consternation, and that is to be expected with any candidate.
One area he needs to start articulating is his policies outside of finance is on international affairs, and right now that is focused on two things: Trump and Ukraine. I think Carney will likely align his response to Trump's antics on tariffs with the rest of the majority of parliamentarians outside of the CPC and the lone premier of Alberta, mainly in having a strong united plan of intelligently calculated retaliation coupled with behind the scenes diplomacy with individual congress members and state governors who rely on trade with Canada.
In my opinion, Ukraine needs more military help. It's not enough to just keep the war going with barely enough assistance to maintain a slowly eroding front line for years with increasing rates of attrition on both sides. It is not acceptable to Europe or NATO to allow Putin to win through appeasement that gifts him the currently occupied territory in eastern Ukraine. That will result in a pause long enough for Putin or his successor to rearm and start another war with a more powerful army heading straight to the Polish and Romanian borders, and to invade the Baltics. Don't believe Russia won't do just that? Then please count the number of peace agreements Russia has violated recently and historically, often with its military. (Answer: every last one of them). Russia lies every day, and is a proven terrorist state. Nuclear blackmail worked, until just the last two years when it became obvious it was bluster. If Canada helped more by, for example, working with European NATO members like France, Poland and the UK to send a secondary armed force into western Ukraine to take over defending Ukraine's flanks and offering labour for Ukraine's factories and rebuilding efforts, then thousands more Ukrainian soldiers will be able to help on the front lines. I see it as helping both Ukraine and our European allies and trading partners as Trump continues on his merry nationalist way and Canada seeks to bolster its relationship with EU and Asian economic partners.
We'll find out soon enough where Carney and other leadership contenders stand on important international issues.