Christy Clark bows out of Liberal leadership race while Karina Gould is expected to launch her bid by Sunday at the latest.The Canadian Press
More high-profile Liberals said they would not run for the party leadership on Tuesday, leaving the race to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau open to the perceived front-runners, former central banker Mark Carney and ex-finance minister Chrystia Freeland.
Neither candidate has made their bids official, but sources close to their campaigns said Mr. Carney will launch his race on Thursday at a hockey rink in Edmonton and Ms. Freeland is tentatively planning to declare her candidacy in Montreal on Friday.
On Tuesday, former B.C. premier Christy Clark and Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne both said they would not run for the Liberal Party’s top job. While Mr. Champagne’s announcement was expected, Ms. Clark’s came as a surprise. She cited her lack of French and the short runway Mr. Trudeau left whoever becomes his successor.
Government House Leader Karina Gould is also readying a leadership bid, with a launch expected by Sunday at the latest, according to two sources close to her campaign. While Ms. Gould has been in cabinet since 2017, her positions have been more junior and she has a lower profile than both Ms. Freeland and Mr. Carney.
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Late Tuesday, The Liberal Party set a $5-million spending limit for its two-month leadership race, with a debt limit of no more than $200,000 at any given time.
The party also said the first installment of a $350,000 entrance fee is due Jan. 23, the full payment must be made by Feb. 17.
The Prime Minister’s Jan. 6 resignation gave the party less than three months to hold a leadership race. Whoever succeeds him faces the prospect of almost immediately being thrown into a federal election. With all three opposition parties pledging to bring down the minority Liberals no matter who is leader, his successor has the option of facing defeat in the House or pre-emptively calling a snap election.
As part of her pitch, Ms. Freeland will try to distance herself from the government in which she was the second in command. For example, she is considering renouncing the capital gains tax hike that she defended in her budget less than a year ago, according to two sources.
The Globe is not identifying the sources who were not authorized to disclose the plans.
The developments leave the Liberals with no high-profile Quebec candidate, despite the party relying heavily on that province for its electoral success. However, the Liberals have long alternated between francophone and anglophone leaders, and that dynamic helped sway Mr. Champagne and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly.
Mr. Carney and Ms. Freeland are now vying for their coveted endorsements and in particular the massive network of organizers that Ms. Joly has amassed.
Both candidates are trying to distance themselves from the minority Liberal government, which is polling at 27 percentage points below the Conservatives.
Mr. Carney is the former governor of the banks of Canada and England and chair of Mr. Trudeau’s task force on economic growth. He soft-launched his campaign in a late Monday interview on the Daily Show.
“I am an outsider,” he said, adding that Canadians have been “hard-pressed” by inflation, slow wage growth, and the cost of housing.
“Truth be told, the government has been not as focused on those issues as it could be, we need to focus on them immediately,” Mr. Carney said.
The federal Liberals have been trying to recruit him for years. In December, the Prime Minister’s Office believed it had finally snagged him for the job of minister of finance and Mr. Trudeau told Ms. Freeland she would be replaced by Mr. Carney. However, he backed out and she instead quit on Dec. 16 in a stinging public rebuke of the Prime Minister.
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Mr. Carney, who is currently the chair of Brookfield Asset Management, has not explained his role in the debacle that ultimately triggered the Prime Minister’s resignation.
At his Jan. 6 press conference, Mr. Trudeau described Ms. Freeland as an “incredible political partner” and a key player in his government.
A source in Ms. Freeland’s campaign said her tentatively planned Montreal launch event would be followed up with a similar one in Toronto, also on Friday. However, the plans could still change.
The insider said the former finance minister’s pitch to the Liberal caucus and party is a leader that will listen to their views.
In addition to weighing a disavowal of the capital gains tax hike, the source said she will propose matching U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats with dollar-for-dollar retaliation and pitch setting up a military base in the Canadian Arctic.
On the controversial capital gains tax hike, the source said, Ms. Freeland will make the point that this tax was imposed on her by Mr. Trudeau.
The Globe is not identifying the source who was not authorized to discuss the campaign’s strategy.
Ms. Freeland, 56, and Mr. Carney, 59, are close friends and the former central banker is godfather to one of the ex-finance minister’s children.
They are expected to be joined in the race by Ms. Gould, who, at 37, plans to leverage her millennial status and aim for the party’s progressive wing, according to two sources close to her campaign. All three contenders are graduates of Britain’s Oxford University and they are all bilingual.
At an unrelated Tuesday news conference in her home riding of Burlington, Ont., Ms. Gould wouldn’t say whether she will run but she made the case for her candidacy.
“I think it is extremely important that we have a younger voice in the race, who can relate to people where they are and the struggles that they’re facing today,” she said.
The Prime Minister’s Office has not yet said whether leadership candidates will have to step down from cabinet to enter the race.
Mr. Champagne said Tuesday he would not run for Liberal leader to “dedicate my energy to defend Canada, to defend Canadians, to defend Canadian businesses.” He did not say whether he will run in the next general election.
In announcing her own decision, Ms. Clark said she was staying out of the race because her French is “not where it needs to be, today.”
Her nascent campaign took a hit on Friday when she falsely claimed she had never been a member of the federal Conservative Party.
Also planning leadership bids are Nova Scotia MP Jaime Battiste, Ontario MP Chandra Arya and former Quebec MP Frank Baylis.