Liberal leadership contenders focus on Trump’s threats to Canadian economy, sovereignty in French debate

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Liberal Party leadership front-runners focused on U.S. President Donald Trump in Monday night’s high-stakes French debate, decrying his repeated threats to Canada’s economy and sovereignty.

Chrystia Freeland, the former finance minister who has focused much of her leadership bid on her experience dealing with Mr. Trump, was stark in her assessment of what’s at stake for the country. ”Trump represents the biggest threat to Canada since the Second World War,” she said. “He is threating us with an economic war.”

Mark Carney, the former governor of both the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, said of the U.S. President: “We need to focus on what we can control. We can’t control President Trump.”

Opinion: Even with his gaffes, Carney is still the front-runner after the French debate

Mr. Carney, Ms. Freeland, Karina Gould and Frank Baylis all jockeyed to present themselves to Liberal Party members as best to take on Mr. Trump’s administration, only hours after the President re-iterated his intention to shortly impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian imports.

Liberal Party members choose a new leader on March 9, and that person will become prime minister, adding urgency to the question of how the contenders will grapple with the U.S. administration.

Ms. Gould, the former Liberal House leader, said Canadians need calm leadership to address the chaos thrown up by Mr. Trump, while Mr. Baylis, a former MP, stressed the need to pivot away from Mr. Trump and toward strengthening Canada’s relationships with other large economies.

United as they were on the threats posed by Mr. Trump, so too were the four contenders aligned on their perspective that their chief domestic rival, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, cannot be allowed to win the next election. They accused him in turns of being poised to cut essential programs for Canadians and aid to Ukraine, and being unfit to lead.

The two-hour event in Montreal on Monday marked the first time all four candidates presented themselves before Liberal Party members since the leadership campaign began last month with the announcement by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that he would resign.

The candidates’ differing levels of fluency in French underpinned Monday night’s debate. Though there are francophones throughout Canada, the main audience was Quebec. The province has long provided a reliable base of Liberal support, but under Mr. Trudeau, it began to slump.

Mr. Baylis was the most comfortable in Quebec’s official language, closely followed by Ms. Gould. Both were able to articulate their ideas clearly, despite forgivable grammar mistakes.

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The two front-runners, for their part, spoke with a careful, slow, and at times awkward rhythm, relying on rehearsed lines and highlighting a limited vocabulary. Ms. Freeland was hesitant on a few occasions, but also capitalized on Mr. Carney’s gaffes.

During a discussion on the future of Israel and the Palestinians, Mr. Baylis said that although he supports recognizing the Palestinian state, “that has nothing to do with Hamas. It is all about the people and helping them rebuild their society. It is absolutely not that we’d work with Hamas.”

The former central banker interjected to agree but misspoke, saying instead: “We agree with Hamas.” Ms. Freeland jumped on the mic to say that “we are absolutely not in agreement with Hamas,” after which Mr. Carney clarified his statement, saying he is “against Hamas and for a two-state solution.”

In a scrum with reporters afterwards, Mr. Carney was asked about his gaffe and whether his command of French isn’t strong enough, and said he looks forward to debating other political leaders in French if he wins the Liberal leadership.

Ms. Freeland was asked after the debate about her interjection to clarify Mr. Carney’s comment on Hamas. She said she knows where Mr. Carney stands and felt it was important to clarify what could have been a “dangerous moment.”

Ms. Freeland said French is her fifth language and she has been working hard to improve since entering federal politics. ”Let me say, as an anglophone, French is hard,” she said.

Ms. Freeland also interjected at another point in the debate to complete Mr. Carney’s sentence as he struggled to find the French term for supply management.

On several occasions, Mr. Carney repeated that Canadians must be “masters in our own home” (maîtres chez nous in French), a reference to a campaign slogan promoting hydroelectric nationalization in the 1960s by former Quebec Liberal premier Jean Lesage, a key figure of the province’s Quiet Revolution.

Ahead of the debate, the candidates all released more elements of their policy platforms and were pressed by the moderator, former TVA-Québec anchor Pierre Jobin, on Monday evening, to expand on some of those promises.

Mr. Carney repeated his pledge to balance the operational budget within three years but didn’t answer as to how he’d do that while also promising to increase defence spending and cut taxes.

Ms. Freeland, for her part, appeared to dismiss Mr. Jobin’s reference to the current $60-billion deficit. That figure was revealed in the last federal economic update – the one she was to deliver before she quit as finance minister. When the candidates were asked when they foresee a return to a balanced budget, Ms. Freeland accused Mr. Jobin of repeating Conservative misinformation.

A second debate, in English, is set for Tuesday.

A fifth candidate, former Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla, was disqualified Friday over what the party said were campaign-finance irregularities, and her appeal was dismissed late Monday.

Mr. Carney, Ms. Freeland and Mr. Baylis expressed support for building additional east-west pipelines for Canada to export fossil fuels outside the continent and become less reliant on U.S. exports, something Quebec has refused in the past. Mr. Carney and Ms. Freeland underscored the need to get the provinces’ consent, while Ms. Gould was non-committal on the issue, simply saying that a conversation on Canada’s energy security is needed.

All candidates agreed with the need to protect French, but did not commit to supporting the project of a Quebec constitution, as outlined in Bill 96, a law adopted in 2022 that reinforced French requirements in the province. “The Canadian Charter is the Canadian Charter,” said Ms. Gould, while Mr. Baylis called Bill 96 a “discriminatory law.” Mr. Carney evaded the question, instead expressing support for Radio-Canada and throwing a jab at Mr. Poilievre, who vowed to defund the CBC.

Ms. Freeland, Ms. Gould and Mr. Baylis said they would defend Canadians’ constitutional rights and fight Bill 21, the Quebec law that banned teachers, police officers and other public servants from wearing religious symbols on the job. Mr. Carney said he agreed with his colleagues but also added that he “absolutely respects Quebec’s view of secularism.”

Opposition Conservatives and New Democrats are keeping a close eye on the debates, with the Tories pouncing on moments during Monday’s event that included Mr. Carney refusing to be specific on immigration levels and his French language stumbles.

With Parliament scheduled to resume March 24 and the opposition parties vowing to defeat the minority Liberal government, the candidates were asked when they would trigger the next federal election. All four said it will depend on events.

”We don’t take a decision before we have to take a decision,” Mr. Carney said.