Liberal MPs are starting to reveal which candidates they’re backing in the race to replace Justin Trudeau, just as the presumed front-runners get ready to declare they’re running.
Health Minister Mark Holland, Liberal MPs Ben Carr, Ken McDonald and Stéphane Lauzon, and former cabinet minister Randy Boissonnault say they’re supporting former finance minister Chrystia Freeland.
Liberal MPs George Chahal, Sophie Chatel, Salma Zahid, Francesco Sorbara, Wayne Long and Patrick Weiler are throwing their support behind Mark Carney ahead of his official campaign event Thursday.
Other caucus members, such as Immigration Minister Marc Miller, have declined to weigh in.
Carney is set to launch his leadership campaign this afternoon in Edmonton, ending nearly a decade of speculation about his political ambitions, while Freeland and government House leader Karina Gould are expected to launch their campaigns in the coming days.
Candidates have until Jan. 23 to declare their intention to run and pay an initial entrance fee of $50,000. They have to ultimately pay $350,000 to enter the race, with the final instalment due by Feb. 17.
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Liberals will elect their new leader and bring the Trudeau era to a close on March 9.
Carney, a former Bank of Canada governor, will seek to position himself as an outsider and put some distance between himself and Trudeau’s deeply unpopular government.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and his party posted a video on social media Thursday that casts Carney as the “ultimate Liberal insider,” citing his close relationships with Freeland and Trudeau and his recent work advising the Liberal party on economics.
Conservative MPs Michelle Rempel Garner and Michael Barrett sent a letter Thursday to Bruce Flatt, head of Brookfield Asset Management, asking him to disclose Carney’s compensation structure to reveal potential conflicts of interest. Brookfield has been lobbying the government Carney has advised.
Poilievre has for years been sharpening his attacks against Carney in anticipation of this moment, branding him as “carbon tax Carney” and more recently as “just like Justin.”
Carney declined to run for the Liberal leadership in 2013, before Trudeau decisively won the Liberal mantle and led the party to a majority government in the 2015 election.
Launching his campaign in Edmonton gives the 59-year-old a chance to put his Alberta roots on full display as Canadians get to know him.
An Edmonton Oilers fan, Carney grew up in the city’s west end and delivered newspapers as a part-time job, according to a 2012 profile of him that ran in the Edmonton Journal.
Alberta could shape up to be an intense battleground between Carney and Freeland, who also grew up in the province.
While most voters in conservative-leaning Alberta are unlikely to help the Liberals avoid the political wilderness after Trudeau’s exit, the province will be a key target for leadership contenders shopping for support.
Under party rules, each of Canada’s 343 federal ridings is worth 100 points in the leadership race.
Martha Hall Findlay, who ran for the Liberal leadership against Trudeau but has long since left the party, said that means Liberals in Alberta ridings could play an outsized role in deciding who wins the leadership.
“Most Canadians don’t understand just how important it is that each one of the ridings has equal weight,” she said. “Watch both Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney playing up their Alberta roots big time, because the ridings out here are way less populated with Liberal members.”
