Mark Carney emerged the Liberal Leader in the leadership election with a landslide victory
Mark Carney, the former central bank governor who has never been elected to federal office, decisively won the Liberal leadership race and is set to become Canada’s 24th prime minister.
Mr. Carney framed his victory Sunday evening as a dual mandate: unite the country to take on U.S. President Donald Trump and at the same time defeat Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre in an election campaign.
Trouncing his rivals in the contest, Mr. Carney took 85.9 per cent of the vote, followed by 8 per cent for Chrystia Freeland, 3.2 per cent for Karina Gould and 3 per cent for Frank Baylis, a result that Liberals said Sunday shows a clear desire for a clean break from outgoing leader and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“Donald Trump thinks he can weaken us with his plan to divide and conquer. Pierre Poilievre’s plan will leave us divided and ready to be conquered,” Mr. Carney said.
“Because a person who worships at the altar of Donald Trump will kneel before him, not stand up to him. Pierre Poilievre’s slogans are not solutions.”
Though about 396,000 people registered with the party during the campaign, only 151,899 ultimately cast a ballot in a process marred by technical complications linked to the use of a Canada Post app for identity verification.
The failure of Ms. Freeland to win even her own Toronto riding was a blow to the former finance minister, whose decision to quit Mr. Trudeau’s cabinet on Dec. 16 set the wheels in motion for Mr. Trudeau’s announcement in January that he would resign once a new leader was chosen.
“Mark has a very strong mandate and the support of the party. He has my support,” Ms. Freeland told reporters after the results were announced.
Ms. Freeland’s break with Mr. Trudeau was in part because he told her he wanted Mr. Carney to be his finance minister.
Though Mr. Carney had for years been considered a potential Liberal candidate and possible replacement for Mr. Trudeau, he has never run for a seat as an MP.
He was brought on by Mr. Trudeau to help advise on COVID-19-related economic policies, and again to chair an economic task force last year. However, during the leadership campaign, Mr. Carney broke with the Liberals’ signature policy on a consumer price on carbon, saying he would repeal it and also would roll back planned changes to the capital-gains tax regime.
His past ties with the Liberals have featured heavily in Conservative attacks, with Mr. Poilievre’s party branding Mr. Carney as “Just Like Justin.”
Mr. Carney isn’t the change he says he is, Mr. Poilievre told his own rally earlier Sunday in the battleground region of London, Ont.
Liberal policies drove up taxes, housing costs and food prices based on Mr. Carney’s advice, Mr. Poilievre said, a reference to Mr. Carney’s work as an economic adviser to the Liberals.
“And now our Liberal friends, after they’ve caused all this damage, are going to pull a sneaky trick,” he said. “They’re going to try to get elected for a fourth term. A fourth term by replacing Justin Trudeau with his economic adviser, Mark Carney.”
Mr. Carney is expected to meet with MPs on Monday after a cabinet meeting, and could call an election within a week.
Prior to his victory address, Mr. Carney was introduced by his daughter Cleo, just as Mr. Trudeau was introduced by his daughter, Ella-Grace.
In Mr. Trudeau’s final remarks to party faithful – about 2,000 people were gathered in Ottawa Sunday night – he reached all the way back to the “hope and hard work” slogan that won the Liberals a surprising majority in the 2015 election, a campaign where they had started in third place.
“This is a nation-defining moment,” he said. “Democracy is not a given. Freedom is not a given. Even Canada is not a given. None of those happen by accident. None of them will continue without effort. It takes courage. It takes sacrifice. It takes hope and hard work.”
Former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien also urged Liberals to keep up the fight in a speech that reflected back to the major Liberal programs that have reshaped Canada’s economy, but also looked ahead to the threat posed by Mr. Trump.
The U.S. President is throwing decades of friendship with Canada out the window, Mr. Chrétien said.
“We are going to be living a very difficult time, but I’m very confident that the new, the next prime minister, will work with the premiers, the leaders of all the political parties in the House of Commons, and allies around the world, to stand together to meet the challenges that Mr. Trump is creating for the whole world,” he said.
The Liberals used a ranked ballot to elect their new leader, and a points system that allocated each riding in the country 100 points. The winning percentages were based on the number of points each candidate received.
The raw results were 131,674 votes for Mr. Carney, 11,134 for Ms. Freeland, 4,785 for Ms. Gould and 4,038 for Mr. Baylis. A further 268 abstained.
At 37, Ms. Gould was the youngest of the four candidates, and framed her campaign as taking up the progressive torch carried by Mr. Trudeau.
She told reporters afterward that the party is united, and called the race a healthy exchange of views.
“The Liberals have selected a leader who is focused on the economy and on the moment we are in,” she said, and she will support Mr. Carney.
Mr. Baylis, who had focused his campaign on his business acumen, sent an e-mail to his supporters thanking them. “Canadians want a new direction towards a proud and prosperous Canada, and I will always stand with you in that pursuit,” he said.
Mr. Trudeau announced in the first week of January that he was proroguing Parliament until March 24 to allow time for the party to elect a new leader, after which he would resign.
Before Mr. Trudeau declared that he was stepping down, Mr. Poilievre had moved the Conservatives into a dominant lead in public-opinion polls.
Since that announcement on Jan. 6, however, the Liberal Party’s fortunes in polls have improved dramatically, to the point that pollsters now view the next federal election as a competitive race between the Liberals and the Conservatives.
Pollsters attribute the rise to the return of Mr. Trump to the White House and the President’s threats to Canadian sovereignty and economic well-being.
Mr. Carney, in particular, has benefited. The non-profit Angus Reid Institute found that 43 per cent of Canadians believe that the former central banker would be best to square off against Mr. Trump, compared with 34 per cent who choose Mr. Poilievre.
“Canadians know that new threats demand new ideas and a new plan,” Mr. Carney said.
“They know that new challenges demand new leadership. Canadians want positive leadership that will end division and help us build together.”
Both the Conservatives and New Democrats have said they’re ready to go whenever the election campaign is called.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh offered his congratulations to the new Liberal leader.
“We will disagree on many ideas, priorities and policies – but we should always stand united in protecting our country from the threat posed by Donald Trump,” he said in a social media post.
Mr. Carney’s win produces a rare situation in which a prime minister does not have a seat in the House of Commons.
That hasn’t happened since the summer of 1984, when John Turner won the Liberal Party leadership, succeeding Mr. Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau.
In that case, Mr. Turner quickly dissolved Parliament and ran as a candidate in a September election, where he won a seat but the Liberals lost to Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives, which formed a majority government.
With reports from Ian Bailey, Robert Fife and Shannon Proudfoot
This article was first reported by The Globe and Mail
