With the announcement by former B.C. Premier Christy Clark that she would not seek the leadership of the Liberal Party, the race is really down to two people who have not yet officially declared: former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney and former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.
Oh, sure, Government House Leader Karina Gould is expected to confirm her candidacy in the next day or two. Backbench Liberal MPs Chandra Arya and Jaime Battiste have already entered the race, as has former Liberal MP Frank Baylis. Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson might join, too. Or he might not.
But other than Freeland and Carney, every other candidate is doomed to be an also-ran.
Even if the Liberals use a preferential ballot, no one other than Freeland or Carney will be the second choice of enough delegates to push him or her up the middle in a close contest.
The bad news for Canadians, though, is that there is very little to pick and choose between the former Deputy PM, whose surprise resignation in mid-December set the ball rolling that knocked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau out of office, and the former Bank of Canada governor and U.N. climate pitchman.
Both are graduates of Harvard and Oxford. Both are or have been directors of the ultra-ritzy and smugly “progressive” World Economic Forum — the annual gathering in Switzerland were such great ideas as electric-vehicle mandates and net-zero power grids and economic and social “resets” following the pandemic were hatched, or at least enthusiastically accepted.
Freeland used to list Carney as one of her mentors back in her journalism days, along with billionaire George Soros — one of the biggest individual funders of lefty political causes in the world.
Carney is even godfather to Freeland’s son.
There is nothing nefarious about being her son’s godfather. It’s just that that fact shows what a tiny, close-knit group controls the Liberal party and will continue to control it no matter who replaces Trudeau.
Many of Trudeau’s closest advisers, too, are said to have begun organizing for Carney. That kind of undermines his claim to be an “outsider” candidate. (So does Trudeau’s repeated claims since at least 2020 that Carney was a “close adviser.”)
Interestingly, both Freeland and Carney claim to be from Edmonton, as if that is supposed to make their centralist ideas more palatable to Westerners. Carney is even expected to make his formal campaign announcement in Edmonton on Thursday.
But just as importantly, both Carney and Freeland took off from the West at their first opportunity.
Back in 2013, Trudeau announced his bid for the Liberal leadership in Calgary and see how that turned out.
Policy-wise, there is little to distinguish the two. On government spending, money supply, environmental mandates and deficits, it would be impossible to slide a slip of paper between their two positions.
And then there is their closeness to Trudeau.
Both are tarred with the current government’s policy failures (of which there are many) because of the mountains of advice they gave the PM.
This is a bigger problem for Freeland who was his loyal deputy PM for five years, as well as being one of Trudeau’s most loyal supporters in cabinet for the entire nine-plus years the Liberals have been in power.
Carney’s role as a close adviser was not official until last fall when he became “chair of the leader’s task force on economic growth.” Still, on many occasions for years before that, he or Trudeau, or Trudeau’s staff, have spoken of the special relationship the two men have.
Carney is going to have to explain to Canadians, too, why he should be trusted to our prime minister when he has citizenship in three countries — Canada, Ireland and the U.K.
Which ever candidate is successful, though, I still expect them to be trounced in the next election.