Weekly Writ 1/15: Liberal race firms up
Some big names are out, but the two biggest names are still in.
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The contours of the Liberal leadership race are coming into focus and it might be a simpler contest than it appeared to be just days ago.
Most of the news this past week came from potential candidates who have withdrawn their names from consideration. Arguably none of them were in the top tier that consists solely of Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney, but some of them were just below that tier — candidates who had a real shot if one of the two frontrunners declined to run or flamed out on the (short) campaign trail.
On Tuesday, former B.C. premier Christy Clark announced she would not be running, blaming her poor French-language proficiency. Left unsaid was her claim she was never a member of the Conservative Party, a claim that was quickly shown to be false.
While her appeal in Quebec and her debatable party loyalty might have been obstacles too great to overcome, Clark had one advantage that no other candidate in the race has: she has won a leadership race before and has been the focal point of intense campaigning. She would also have had an important base in British Columbia.
There was also foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly who took her name out of contention. She would have been the strongest candidate from Quebec, an important constituency in this leadership race that could have pushed her into the top tier. Anita Anand, transport and internal trade minister, also pulled out. A second tier made up of Joly, Anand and/or Clark would have added an interesting dynamic to the contest and given party members some viable alternatives to the top two.
The decisions of François-Philippe Champagne and Steven MacKinnon not to run, combined with Joly’s, mean there will be no significant candidate from Quebec. It’ll be the first time that a contested Liberal leadership race hasn’t had a candidate either born in or representing a riding in Quebec among the top finishers since 1958.
It also means that there will be a bit of a gap between the frontrunning candidates and the rest of the field — at least at first.
Carney and Freeland make up that top tier. Carney will reportedly announce his candidacy later this week, while Freeland will do so next week. They are the two heavyweights in the race. They both bring experience on the economic file, one as a former Bank of Canada governor and the other as a former finance minister. Freeland carries much more of the Trudeau government’s baggage than does Carney — he carries very little of it, though he did take a job chairing a task force for the government only a few months ago — but Freeland’s dramatic departure from cabinet created a little bit of space between herself and Trudeau.
Freeland has a natural regional base in Toronto, where she’s been an MP since 2013. It’s not clear if she’ll have any other significant regional bases of support. That’s also an open question for Carney, though he grew up in Edmonton and obviously spent a lot of time in Ottawa with the department of finance and the Bank of Canada. But familial and professional links are not quite the same as having organizational links within the party.
Building those links, or leaning on pre-existing relationships, will probably not be too difficult for either Freeland or Carney, as they appear to be the favourites of the party establishment (and, since the Freeland resignation, likely very different parts of that establishment). As we learn more about each candidate’s teams, we’ll get a clearer picture of their relative strengths.
It doesn’t appear that there will be the kind of second tier of candidates that we often see in leadership races — a tier of contenders who could have a lot of influence on the final outcome or even pull off an upset themselves. Clark, Joly and Anand might have made up that tier.
Instead, we have a tier of serious candidates with less-than serious chances. It looks like that tier will include government house leader Karina Gould and, potentially, natural resources minister Jonathan Wilkinson. If both do run, they will bring some interesting factors to the race. Gould will be the younger candidate — the candidate of the new generation of Liberals — and will apparently try to carve out a lane on the progressive flank. She would have a small base in the western GTA.
Wilkinson would be the only B.C. candidate in the running and could potentially claim the support of Western Canadian Liberals, though he will likely compete with both Carney and Freeland, who also grew up in Alberta, for that hometown appeal.
If neither Carney nor Freeland can win on the first ballot, then they will need the votes of Gould’s and, if he runs, Wilkinson’s backers. That will give them some influence on the outcome. And, if either of them can finish ahead of either Carney or Freeland before the final ballot, then they might have a chance to be the recipient of all of the anybody-but-Carney or anybody-but-Freeland vote.
There’s a trio of lesser-known candidates who have also declared their interest in running. Two are current MPs (Nepean’s Chandra Arya and Sydney–Victoria’s Jaime Battiste) and one is a former MP (Pierrefonds–Dollard’s Frank Baylis). It seems unlikely they will have much impact on the race, assuming they can raise enough money to meet the party’s entry requirements. But perhaps one of them could work themselves up into the next tier with Gould and Wilkinson.
Is this the epic leadership contest the Liberals might have been hoping for? We’ve been imagining a final ballot that includes Freeland and Carney for years, so that they both appear to be in the running will probably be a relief to the party. At the very least, this isn’t shaping up to be the 2017 Conservative leadership race where all the serious contenders opted not to run.
But the list of contestants probably would have been much more impressive had Trudeau not left so little time (and so little remaining Liberal support) to his successor.
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Now, to what is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
News on how the Liberal leadership race will unfold, plus some more MPs announce they won’t run for re-election. News also on the Quebec and Nova Scotia Liberal races and the de-registration of a federal party.
Polls on the Liberal leadership race, how things look in Ontario and whether Canadians want to be the 51st U.S. state.
Doug Ford would win a bigger majority government if the election were held today.
The 1896 Manitoba election in the #EveryElectionProject.