Canadian Liberals to get new leader

Canada’s Liberal leadership race wraps up Sunday after a rather tepid two-month campaign, largely defined by the return to power of US President Donald Trump. Four candidates are vying for the crown: former Bank of Canada and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, former Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, former Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould, and businessman and former MP Frank Baylis.

Carney is favored to win, with a recent Ipsos poll giving him 68% support among Liberal members, ahead of Freeland at 14% and Gould and Baylis in single digits. While a recent poll showed Carney as the leader most trusted to take on Trump, another shows him dropping back behind Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre in the popular vote.Poll aggregator 338Canada.com shows both the Liberals and Conservatives in a position to form a government, however, if an election were held today.

After leadership, an election? Canadians must go to the polls by Oct. 25, but the House of Commons is supposed to return on March 24, and opposition parties have threatened to bring down the Liberals’ minority government. Until this week, with the party rebounding in the polls, there was speculation the new leader might simply call a snap election, perhaps as early as the week of March 10.

But the winds may have shifted with the imposition of Trump’s tariffs. The head of the New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh, wrote a letter Tuesday demanding an emergency session of Parliament to pass unemployment insurance relief measures, meaning his party does not immediately intend to bring down the government – giving the Liberals a lifeline to stick around a bit longer if they choose.