Morning Update: Behind Carney and Freeland’s friendly rivalry

Good morning. While we catch up on last night’s French Liberal leadership debate and prepare for this evening’s English debate, we take a closer look at Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland’s intersecting pathways to this moment. More on that below, plus updates on Pope Francis’s health and predictions for the Academy Awards.

Today’s headlines

• Alberta says it will build two involuntary care centres for people with severe drug addictions
• U.S. President Donald Trump says tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports are going ahead for March 4
• Rifts deepen at the UN as Trump openly sided with Moscow, and signals Ukraine could reclaim some land

Open this photo in gallery:

Politics

A tale of two candidates

I’m Shannon Proudfoot, a feature writer in The Globe’s Ottawa bureau. Tonight we get to see the two front-runners to replace Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader – one of whom is likely to become what one witty professor insists should technically be known as “pub quiz prime minister,” given how short the tenure could be.

They face off in English on the debate stage in Montreal, after Monday night’s French debate there.

Last night was a remarkably harmonious and low-key affair. In fact, the phrase most frequently uttered by everyone on stage might have been “je suis d’accord.” Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland had the weakest French of the bunch and grasped for words at times (him more than her) but it wasn’t a disastrous outing. It was, however, a debate defined by external enemies and threats – in the form of Donald Trump, Pierre Poilievre and Vladimir Putin – much more than any spiky differences in approach between the front-runners to replace Trudeau as leader.

I recently wrote a feature on the unusual connections between Carney and Freeland, and while I was working on it, I couldn’t escape the mental image of a board game.

The similarities in the biographies of the two are striking, and at a certain point it starts to feel like they both travelled around the same invisible game board, collecting the pieces required for a very specific high-level Canadian political resume.

Raised in Alberta, so they have some just-like-us street cred? Check.

Harvard, then Oxford, because they are also brighter and more well-educated than the average bear? Yep.

Key chapters of their careers unfolding abroad, where their Canadianness was a whimsical calling card? Done, and done.

Prepolitical careers spent in rarified board rooms and dining rooms among global financial titans? I think you know where this is going.

Given all that common ground, it’s probably unsurprising that Carney and Freeland moved in the same social and professional circles. He is the godfather of her youngest child, though he is – or was – closer to her husband, New York Times reporter Graham Bowley, and it was never an especially tight friendship between the two main leadership contenders.

And despite all the areas where they converge, there is plenty to contrast. He studied economics; she studied history and literature. After school, he worked for Goldman Sachs in London and Tokyo. She moved to Ukraine and wrote for The Washington Post, The Economist and the Financial Times.

Here’s what’s even more interesting – to me, at least. In many ways, we are where we are right now politically because of the interplay between these two people.

Seemingly every time this government was on the rocks over the past few years, Carney was their economic credibility phone-a-friend. And when the Prime Minister’s Office decided Freeland was persona non grata, Carney was the person they purported to have waiting in the wings.

It was Trudeau offering Carney the Finance portfolio and telling Freeland he wanted her out that prompted her explosive resignation in December. And after months of caucus pressure on the Prime Minister to step down, it was his loyal finance minister walking away and burning down the joint on her way out that provided the final shove toward his own resignation, which launched the leadership race that’s now on.

It would be tough to overstate just how much the Canadian political landscape has shifted as a result of Trudeau showing himself the door, and Donald Trump stomping back into the frame to threaten tariffs and an outright takeover of Canada.

The fat, durable lead the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre had enjoyed for a year and a half – which had reached 25 percentage points – has narrowed to single digits as Canadian voters make a fresh assessment of a Trudeau-less Liberal Party and what this moment of existential American threat calls for in Canadian leadership.

Open this photo in gallery:

As I wrote in my feature, the political picture has shifted more profoundly than seemed possible a few months ago. Canadians now have a chance to see Carney and Freeland cross-examine each other’s plans to lead Canada through Hurricane Trump.

Last night, Canadians more bilingual than your humble correspondent got to see the contenders to replace Trudeau go toe-to-toe, but French presents varying levels of difficulty for each of them. Tonight, we all get to see them present their different visions and plans for Canada without one linguistic hand tied behind their backs.

“You never can tell” has never felt more true in politics.

More reading

• Campbell Clark: Even with his gaffes, Carney is still the front-runner after the French debate
• Tony Keller: A ‘change’ election? No. Canada’s next vote will be a ‘protect me from change’ election

The Shot

‘We do see ourselves as a real essential service for Canadians.’

Open this photo in gallery:

Those small waterfalls of snow tumbling down the mountainside are from a small yellow package of explosives that detonated on the cliffside. It’s a perfect controlled avalanche. That’s part of the work that the Avalanche Canada Foundation does to prevent fatalities and to create avalanche and snow-safety forecasts.

The Wrap

What else we’re following

At home: A 19-year-old woman has been charged with attempted murder after she allegedly stabbed a six-year-old boy in an unprovoked attack in Halifax on Sunday.

Abroad: Women’s defiance grows too loud for Iran to silence. The Globe reports from inside the Islamic Republic.

Praying: The Vatican says Pope Francis is still in critical condition, but is showing slight improvement and resuming some work.

Products: Provinces are vowing to eliminate trade barriers. How much could it save you?

Predicting: Who will win, and who should win, at this year’s Academy Awards.