In a leaked photograph originally taken by an official PMO photographer and provided to The Globe and Mail, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with his team at Rideau Gate ahead of announcing his resignation on Jan. 6. Clockwise from bottom left: Kate Purchase, former PMO communications director; senior adviser Ben Chin; former policy adviser Mike McNair; Liberal party data expert Tom Pitfield; Prime Minister Trudeau; chief of staff Katie Telford; and executive assistant Philip Proulx.Supplied
Barring an upset, Mark Carney is poised to be elected leader of the ruling Liberal Party on Sunday, becoming the country’s first prime minister without any political experience and setting the stage for an early election amid a trade war with Canada’s biggest trading partner.
The return of Donald Trump to the White House and the U.S. President’s threats to Canadian sovereignty and economic well-being have upset the political landscape, giving the Liberals more than a fighting chance against Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives.
New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute found that 43 per cent of Canadians believe that the former central banker would be best to square off against Mr. Trump if he wins the leadership race, compared with 34 per cent who choose Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre.
“Canadians are looking at a Liberal alternative at this point,” said Angus Reid president Shachi Kurl. “Look, if you are Liberals, you are popping champagne. If you are the Conservatives, you are hitting the panic button – but this isn’t over yet.”
If Mr. Carney prevails in Sunday’s vote, he is likely to call a snap election in the week before Parliament is scheduled to be recalled on March 24 for a vote on either April 28 or May 5, according to three sources in the Carney camp.
The Globe and Mail is not identifying the sources to enable them to speak about internal discussions.
Mr. Carney is the clear front runner in the leadership race, has received widespread endorsements from caucus and party faithful and has raised millions of dollars more than his three rivals: Chrystia Freeland, the former finance minister and deputy prime minister; Karina Gould, who was House leader; and former MP Frank Baylis. Mr. Carney has raised more than $4.5-million, according to campaign spokesperson Emily Williams.
Liberal Party of Canada leadership candidate Mark Carney arrives to address supporters in Calgary, on March 4.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Ms. Freeland has fought back, unveiling more detailed policies and being more open to take tough questions from reporters than Mr. Carney. But she’s struggled to raise money and was unable to win over many cabinet and caucus colleagues to her campaign. Even some of her closest advisers acknowledge the difficulty of winning Sunday because of Mr. Carney’s star power and the prospect that he can beat Mr. Poilievre.
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Ms. Gould is being seen by many party stalwarts as a future leadership aspirant while Mr. Baylis had little name recognition despite being a successful Montreal entrepreneur.
The Liberal Party has already booked a campaign plane and buses, purchased ad buys and developed a platform that will need to be integrated with Mr. Carney’s policies, a party insider said. The Globe is not identifying the insider who was not authorized to discuss election planning.
Should he win the leadership vote, Mr. Carney is expected to formally sit down with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday to discuss the transition to power that will likely see him and a new, slimmed down cabinet sworn in by Friday at the latest, the sources said. He is also expected to join Mr. Trudeau at a final Liberal caucus meeting Monday.
Over the past week, Mr. Carney has focused on issues including staffing the Prime Minister’s Office, cabinet selection, transition to government, recruitment of star candidates and drafting an election platform to take to Canadian voters, the sources said. A fourth source said former Privy Council Clerk Janice Charette is heading up the transition team, which will focus on the size of cabinet, updating briefing documents, filing ethics disclosures and lists of decisions to be made by the new government.
The Globe is not identifying the fourth source who was not authorized to discuss transition plans.
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One of the Carney sources said that he may offer cabinet roles to Ms. Freeland and Ms. Gould. The source said Mr. Carney is unlikely to make changes to key ministers who have been handling U.S. relations, namely Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Public Safety Minister David McGuinty.
The three ministers represent safe ridings and can focus on dealing with the Trump administration during the election campaign, the source said.
But all three Carney sources stressed that no final decisions have been made by Mr. Carney.
Liberal Party of Canada leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland looks over as Mark Carney speaks during the English-language Liberal Leadership debate in Montreal on Feb. 25.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Although several polls show the Conservatives ahead of the Liberals, the gap has significantly narrowed from the past year where Mr. Poilievre’s party led by double-digits. The sudden upturn in Liberal fortunes under the potential leadership of Mr. Carney is directly related to Canadians’ fears of Mr. Trump, say pollsters and party veterans.
On Tuesday, the President imposed across-the-board tariffs of 25 per cent on Canadian and Mexican imports, with a lower 10-per-cent charge on energy and critical minerals. In the face of U.S. business backlash, Mr. Trump on Thursday granted Canada and Mexico a partial reprieve from the punishing tariffs until April 2. Canada has imposed $30-billion in countertariffs but paused an additional $125-billion unless Mr. Trump proceeds with the trade war next month.
Two of the sources in the Carney camp say an early election call can build on the momentum that the Liberals are witnessing from Canadians who see him as the most qualified to steer the economy and negotiate with Mr. Trump. As governor of the Bank of Canada, Mr. Carney was praised for helping to manage the 2008 global financial crisis, and later stickhandled Britain through its break with the European Union.
“There seems to be a consensus in the party that Carney is best positioned on his background to deal with the economic challenges that exist today,” said former Liberal national director George Young, a veteran chief of staff during Jean Chrétien and Justin Trudeau governments. He has not publicly declared who he is supporting and has donated to all four campaigns.
“Public-opinion polls are influencing the Liberals’ choice as well. He seems the one the public has settled upon as being the most viable to take over as prime minister,” Mr. Young said.
Liberal Party of Canada leadership candidate Karina Gould speaks during a campaign stop outside of West Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Feb. 26.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
A snap election call would also limit the cash-rich Conservatives from running attack ads to discredit Mr. Carney. Once a vote is called, every party is on an equal footing with spending limits that would actually benefit the Liberals as they currently hold more seats than the Conservatives.
The leadership race was triggered on Jan. 6 when Mr. Trudeau bowed to mounting party pressure to step aside. He had resisted efforts to push him out but relented after Ms. Freeland abruptly resigned when he tried to replace her as finance minister with Mr. Carney.
In a scenario where Ms. Freeland were to win the leadership race, the Angus Reid survey shows her – albeit more narrowly – edging Mr. Poilievre as the more trusted choice to take on Mr. Trump. She leads 36 per cent to 33 per cent, almost a statistical tie. The poll was conducted from Feb. 27 to March 3, among a representative randomized sample of 2,005 Canadians with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Mr. Carney and Ms. Freeland have advocated largely the same policies in dealing with Mr. Trump, such as dollar-for-dollar retaliation for tariffs, as has Mr. Poilievre. The two Liberal rivals are also on the same page in scrapping carbon pricing for consumers, reversing course on increases to capital-gains taxes, removing interprovincial trade barriers and getting oil and natural gas to global markets.
But Mr. Carney is not tainted by having sat at the cabinet table, allowing him more room to criticize Trudeau-government policies during a campaign. He has contrasted himself with Mr. Poilievre’s lifetime in politics, playing up his experience as an economic crisis manager while criticizing profligate Trudeau-era spending and a massive increase in the size of the federal bureaucracy.
“The reality is we are in a crisis … it’s a serious situation. This is not a time for someone who’s only ever jumped up and shouted slogans in the House of Commons,” Mr. Carney told a recent gathering in Barrie, Ont. “If it’s not a crisis, you wouldn’t be seeing me. I’m most useful in a crisis. I’m not that good in peacetime.”
Mr. Carney says his government would take proceeds from Canadian countertariffs and ensure they go directly to workers affected by U.S. tariffs. But he says at the same time that he’d cut taxes for the middle class as a separate measure to make life more affordable.
Former Liberal MP Frank Baylis speaks during a press conference following the second night of debate in the federal Liberal leadership race on Feb. 25.ANDREJ IVANOV/AFP/Getty Images
The Conservatives have turned their partisan guns on Mr. Carney in recent weeks. The party is running a major ad campaign seeking to link Mr. Carney to Mr. Trudeau’s policies, using ads on radio, TV and online. They point out that Mr. Carney began informally advising the Prime Minister after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and last fall was formally appointed by Mr. Trudeau to lead an economic task force.
The party has sought to capitalize on a stumble by Mr. Carney in the leadership race. He came under fire after saying he was no longer chair of a major investment company when the formal decision was made to move Brookfield Asset Management’s headquarters to New York.
However, company records show the relocation was completed during his tenure. He later acknowledged that he should have been more precise in his comments but said the move was a technical change for the company to get better access to U.S. stock indices. It did not involve job losses in Canada, he said.
Mr. Carney had skirted questions about pro-actively disclosing any potential financial conflicts of interest beyond what is required by law. He is not currently subject to any federal ethics rules, as he is not an elected MP, nor is he a public office holder. On Thursday, Mr. Carney said he’d reached out to the Ethics Commissioner to put his financial interests in a blind trust, that will be managed by a third party. Conflict-of-interest rules prohibit public office holders from holding assets that could be affected by government policy, such as stocks or bonds.
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Certain assets must also be sold or placed in a blind trust – meaning a third-party will control and make decisions about them.
Mr. Carney did get a political break last week when former prime minister Stephen Harper inadvertently helped solidify his financial credentials. Mr. Harper criticized Mr. Carney for playing up his role in navigating the 2008 financial crisis alongside Jim Flaherty, who was then finance minister.
In a party fundraising letter, Mr. Harper said Mr. Carney, who he named to head the central bank in 2011, was not involved in the day-to-day management of Canada’s economy during that time and that most of the credit falls to Mr. Flaherty, who passed away in 2013.
Economists were quick to dispel the notion that Mr. Carney played second fiddle to Mr. Flaherty.
“I am sure during that period Mr. Carney worked closely with Minister Flaherty, but he was responsible for introducing the necessary measures to stabilize the financial market,” said Mostafa Askari, chief economist at the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy.
If he wins the leadership, Mr. Carney will face challenges to win the election. John Turner was supposed to be the Bay Street outsider who would keep the Liberals in power in 1984 by moving the party back to the political centre.
He lost badly to Brian Mulroney, in part because he was politically rusty and his French was not up to par.
Mr. Carney too is running as the outsider, but he also is not comfortable speaking French. He can come across as wooden in debates, which could pose a challenge up against skilled politicians such as Mr. Poilievre and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet.
“I have no doubt that Blanchet is going to go after him hard. I have no doubt that Poilievre is going to go for him hard. Can he stand up to them over the course of however long the campaign is?” said Ms. Kurl, the pollster.
“We can’t know how he will handle it. We do know he is untested.”