Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney signalled through his campaign team Friday that he will launch his bid to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as leader of the Liberal party late next week, after garnering support from more than two dozen Liberal MPs in the past few days.
And in an interview airing Saturday, former B.C. premier Christy Clark told CBC Radio’s The House that she is “very seriously” considering a leadership bid, but expressed disappointment with the short timeline for the race.
The Liberal party has said the new leader will be announced March 9, leaving prospective candidates just eight weeks to make their case and sign up party members to vote for them. The party is working with a tight time frame because opposition parties intend to defeat the Liberal government the next chance they get in the House of Commons, which would plunge Canada into an election.
Trudeau has prorogued Parliament until March 24, so the March 9 date gives the new Liberal leader two weeks to prepare for the House’s return and a national campaign.
In the interview with CBC, Clark said that timeline isn’t long enough.
“I think it hurts the party’s opportunities to grow,” she said.
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Clark also said she doesn’t think the Liberals should keep the carbon pricing regime, saying “the Trudeau carbon tax isn’t working.”
The carbon price, a signature piece of Trudeau’s climate policy, has become a political lightning rod and is likely to become a critical part of any Liberal contender’s campaign.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre insists the carbon price will be the ballot box issue in the coming election. His slogan “axe the tax” has been prominent in every Conservative rally and talking point since he ran for his party’s leadership in 2022.
He said Thursday that it doesn’t matter who wins the leadership election, since all of his potential opponents have backed carbon pricing.
Chandra Arya, the only sitting Liberal MP to declare his candidacy for the leadership thus far, said Thursday he would scrap the carbon price.
Last spring, Carney told a Senate committee that the federal carbon price has “served a purpose up until now” and called on anyone who wants to scrap it to come up with a “credible and predictable” alternative.
A source who is helping prepare Carney’s campaign launch said the former Bank of Canada governor began ramping up his calls to Liberal MPs and other party members on Monday after Trudeau announced he will resign once a new Liberal leader is chosen.
The source said support that was strong initially grew Wednesday when the Liberal caucus met in Ottawa, and after Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said that day he would not be seeking to run. Many who had been considering backing LeBlanc then moved over to Carney, the source said.
The source claimed Carney has more than 30 sitting MPs in his corner so far, which would amount to more than one-fifth of the caucus.
Candidates have until Jan. 23 to declare their candidacy, and must pay an entry fee of $350,000. Members must sign up by Jan. 27 to vote for the new leader.
That entry fee is steep compared to past Liberal races and could narrow the field of potential candidates. In the 2013 leadership race that Trudeau won—which had six candidates—the entrance fee was just $75,000.
In 2022, the six candidates who ran for the Conservative party leadership paid a $300,000 entrance fee.
The Liberal party has not yet announced all the rules for the leadership race, including the spending limit for candidates.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly took herself out of the running Friday, making her the second cabinet minister to choose their current job over a chance to become prime minister.
Joly said that while she’s ready to become the first female leader of the Liberal party, she’s not willing to leave her cabinet posting at a “crucial time” for Canada-U. S. relations.
“The reality is, I can’t do both,” she told reporters on Parliament Hill on Friday morning.
Joly made the comments heading into a Canada-U. S. cabinet committee meeting called to discuss the retaliatory measures Ottawa is preparing in the event incoming U.S. president Donald Trump follows through on his threat to slam Canada with stiff tariffs.
“We will be ready and I’ll do my job,” Joly said, adding that she will be headed back to Washington next week.
LeBlanc dashed the hopes of many of his caucus supporters Wednesday by becoming the first potential cabinet aspirant to rule out a leadership bid. Judy Sgro and other Liberal MPs have asked him to change his mind, saying he would add to the race as a strong candidate.
A host of other current cabinet ministers are also considering leadership bids, including Karina Gould, François-Philippe Champagne, Jonathan Wilkinson, Anita Anand and Steven MacKinnon.
Arya and former Montreal MP Frank Baylis are the only two candidates to officially declare they are in the race so far.
