Chrystia Freeland, Mark Carney emerge as top contenders in Liberal leadership race

OTTAWA — Less than five weeks after she resigned her cabinet seat over a dispute with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland has launched her campaign to replace him as the leader of the Liberal party.

Freeland’s official campaign launch is set for Sunday in Toronto but she used social media Friday to make clear her intention to join the race.

“I’m running to fight for Canada,” she said in a post on X.

Freeland also wrote an op-ed in the Toronto Star laying out how she would respond to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Canadian goods.

Trump has threatened to bring in a 25 per cent tariff across the board when he takes office on Monday.

Freeland proposed a dollar-for-dollar response, which she said could generate up to $150 billion in a year in revenue for the Canadian government that could be used to help people and businesses affected by U.S. tariffs.

“Florida orange growers, Michigan dishwasher manufacturers and Wisconsin dairy farmers: brace yourselves. Canada is America’s largest export market — bigger than China, Japan, the U.K. and France combined. If pushed, our response will be the single largest trade blow the U.S. economy has ever endured,” Freeland wrote.

Freeland was a key player in responding to Trump’s tariffs during his first term in the White House. As the minister of foreign affairs she oversaw a dollar-for-dollar tariff response to Trump’s imposition of import taxes on Canadian steel and aluminum in 2018.

She was also leading the cabinet committee planning Canada’s response to the latest tariff threat until she abruptly resigned as finance minister and deputy prime minister in December. She cited her disagreement with Trudeau over government spending decisions and the need to save funds to respond if Trump goes ahead with new tariffs.

“We need to take that threat extremely seriously. That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war,” she wrote in her resignation letter.

But the decision also came three days after Trudeau informed he would be replacing her with former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney.

Carney didn’t take on that post and is now Freeland’s opponent in the leadership contest, having launched his own bid in Edmonton on Thursday.

In his launch he said he will be “completely focused on getting our economy back on track.”

He has also pledged to repeal the consumer carbon price if he becomes Liberal leader, and to replace it with a “comprehensive plan” that he promised to release over the next several weeks.

Carney is not a member of Parliament but could serve as prime minister without a seat in the House of Commons. On Thursday, he said he needs to become an MP but did not say where he might run.

In a social media post Friday evening, Carney claimed he had raised $125,000 in donations in just 24 hours and said he was “deeply grateful” for the support his campaign had received.

The criticism that resulted from Freeland’s resignation led Trudeau to announce on Jan. 6 that he will step down as leader of the Liberal party, which will now choose his successor on March 9.

Potential candidates have less than a week left to decide if they will enter the race. They have to pay $50,000 immediately and the rest of the $350,000 entrance fee by mid-February to make it onto the ballot.

Government House leader Karina Gould is expected to launch her campaign this weekend. Ottawa MP Chandra Arya has said he is running, as has former Montreal MP Frank Baylis.

But thus far the endorsement contest is lining up behind Freeland and Carney with multiple MPs throwing their support behind one or the other.

Freeland’s supporters include Health Minister Mark Holland, former cabinet ministers Marie-Claude Bibeau and Randy Boissonnault, Liberal MPs Ben Carr, Ken McDonald, Stéphane Lauzon, Rob Oliphant and Anthony Housefather, and former longtime Liberal MP Wayne Easter.

Housefather posted his endorsement Thursday evening, saying he trusts Freeland to manage Canada’s relationship with the United States.

He also said he encourages candidates to drop the Liberal government’s planned changes to the capital gains inclusion rate. The policy was proposed in the last federal budget during Freeland’s tenure as finance minister, and has been the target of attacks from the federal Conservatives, who say they will repeal the policy if they take office.

Liberal MPs George Chahal, Sophie Chatel, Salma Zahid, Francesco Sorbara, Wayne Long and Patrick Weiler are among those throwing their support behind Carney.

Other caucus members, such as Immigration Minister Marc Miller, have declined to weigh in.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 17, 2025.

Anja Karadeglija and Sarah Ritchie, The Canadian Press