The Liberal Party of Canada will choose its next leader — and by extension, the country’s next prime minister — on March 9.
As the leadership race heats up, two of the frontrunners made campaign swings to British Columbia, where they spoke with Focus BC about their visions for the country.
Here is a little bit of what each of them had to say.
Chrystia Freeland
For former finance minister and deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, the current moment is all about U.S. President Donald Trump, who has threatened massive tariffs on Canadian goods and mused repeatedly about annexing the country as the 51st state.
“Trump is posing an existential threat to Canada. He has declared economic warfare on us. And I know how to meet that challenge and turn it into an opportunity,” Freeland said.
Freeland touts her experience as Canada’s lead negotiator on the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement when Trump tore up NAFTA during his last administration, and says she is ready to do it again.
“We have to have dollar-for-dollar retaliation, we have to publish the specifics of that retaliation right now, because that activates the American stakeholders, we have to make Americans see, ‘Canada actually has leverage over us,’” she said.
Freeland said her plan would involve targeted tariffs intended to make U.S. businesses feel pain while sparing Canadian consumers as much as possible — citing a 100 per cent tariff on Teslas as an example.
Freeland, who was one of outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s closest allies, has faced criticism that she represents a continuation of his agenda.
Trudeau announced his plans to resign in January as the party faced historically low polling numbers.
“I did resign. I was the minister who had the courage to do that,” she responded.
“I wasn’t prime minister. That’s the job I am running for.”
Now that she is out of cabinet and running for leadership, she said, she is free to be her “own person” and pursue her own policy agenda.
Key planks of that agenda, she said, include scrapping the consumer carbon tax, a $500 middle-class tax cut and removing GST for first-time homebuyers.
Mark Carney
Mark Carney, former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, says those jobs along with his time in the business world have given him the experience necessary to manage the current moment of crisis.
“By accident or design, everything in my career has really prepared me for this moment,” he told Focus BC.
Carney said he’s dealt with Trump before and knows the president respects strength. Part of showing Canada’s strength is investing in our own economy and moving away from our dependence on the U.S., he said.
“We do not have to do a deal with the Americans, they want to do a deal with us. We’ll want to do one. It would be better for everyone involved, but we also have options here at home.”
“Sit down, do big things, people will rally behind it.”
That could take years, Carney acknowledged, but said he’d supercharge the economy in the short term with a middle-class tax cut and a focus on tearing down interprovincial barriers to trade.
Like Freeland, Carney is not just campaigning against his political rivals but also what polling has suggested is voter fatigue with a Liberal government now in its 10th year.
Carney said part of the reason he stepped into politics was a drive to prioritize the economy.
“Let’s be candid, that has not been the main focus of the prime minister,” he said.
“He and I are very different people. I have extensive experience in the economy, I have extensive experience in business, I have extensive experience in making the private sector work for the public sector,” Carney said.
Carney is also proposing to eliminate the consumer carbon pricing, and to replace it with a carbon price for large emitters with proceeds funding consumer rebates on green technology — a scheme he said was more “efficient.” Doing so would allow Canadian companies to “leapfrog” their U.S. counterparts on decarbonization during the Trump administration.
Nearly 400,000 Liberal supporters are estimated to have signed up to vote in the leadership contest.
Freeland and Carney will join rival candidates former Liberal House leader Karina Gould, former Liberal MP Frank Baylis and former Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla for two leadership debates later this month.