Monday February 24, 2025 | NATIONAL NEWS [Posted at 10:19 pm PT from VICTORIA, BC]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Tonight the four Liberal Party of Canada leadership candidates shared a stage in Montreal.
All of them are English-speaking Canadians, doing their best to embrace the essential Quebec voter base with smart answers to broader national questions, entirely in French.
Tomorrow night a similar format will take place, all in English. That starts at 8 pm Eastern (5 pm Pacific), widely televised and livestreamed.
The debate format posed broad-ranging questions about economy, foreign relations, affordability and Canada’s sovereignty. There was enough room for some fullsome answers as well as space for some back-and-forth debate with a flow set by the candidates more than the moderator.
These are all Liberals who have worked with one another at some point and to varying degrees over the past many years. They weren’t about to chop heads off when a Liberal party future is at stake in the next election.
Different styles:
All four of these political aspirants are clearly intelligent and informed about the issues of the day. But their styles differ. [See Liberal leadership candidate profiles]
And that’s where voters will be looking to see who–if they become prime minister — has the chops to take on the economic crisis that is on the verge of escalating across the country.
Economic crisis tops the chart:
The economic crisis in Canada is due largely to US President Donald Trump taking a new tack in the White House.
For Trump it’s all about the deal, and crushing the enemy through economic pressure.
The rest of the problem is Canada itself which has slacked badly in terms of productivity for many years and has never really tried hard enough to break down inter-provincial barriers to trade.
Who said what:
Mark Carney has already achieved the status of ‘likely to win’ based on most opinion polls of recent weeks. He may have a few shaky days in the viewfinder of Conservatives who will play up his noticeable French-speaking error on the stage this evening. But his obvious comfort at explaining how he would re-jig the Canadian economy for greater success is still his winning hand.
Carney revealed tonight that he is definitely going to run for a federal seat, now that he has left his boards and other positions of influence behind; this minimizes at least one concern that Carney presently doesn’t sit as an MP in the House of Commons.
Chrystia Freeland has clearly worked hard to significantly improved her style in front of the camera, offering a pleasant facial tone throughout much of the debate.
She was in her element discussing how she dealt with Trump in the first go-round of renegotiating NAFTA (which became CUSMA, i.e. NAFTA 2.0) and stood tall on her work on development programs with provinces.
But as contender Karina Gould pointed out during the two-hour debate, the old ways won’t work with Trump this time around.
Karina Gould is gunning for the younger adult vote. She herself is raising a young family with her husband in Burlington, Ontario.
She sees how her generation is struggling with the cost of living.
Most of the political pundits this evening declared Gould the winner of the debate in terms of truly debating and having well-structured answers.
She is obviously intending to further her federal political career — if not prime minister this time, then perhaps in the future. Tonight she thanked her teachers for all they did to get her ready for this phase of her career.
Frank Baylis is a Montreal businessman, a self-made billionaire. Evidently his French was bang-on to meet the expectations of Francophone voters. For the most part he stuck to his lane, that being business negotiation skills and what he claims is his understanding of Trump (he wouldn’t give the bully an inch).
Baylis did serve one term as a Montreal-area MP during 2015-2019, so he is less of a stranger to the political world than Carney.
The fact that he didn’t thirst for politics from 2019 until now lends credibility to the stance that he’s in this now to deal with economic issues in light of the Trump threat.
The Liberal family thing:
A highlight of the evening was Freeland’s political acumen jumping instantly to the front lines when she instinctively corrected Carney’s French when he landed a significant faux pas in describing his position on the middle east conflict. He said he was ‘with’ Hamas when by all accounts by everyone (the other candidates in the moment and pundits afterward) that he meant what he said when he corrected himself to say ‘against’ Hamas.
In her media scrum after the debate, Freeland said she knew it would create political trouble for the Liberal party if she did not act to immediately correct Carney on the fly. That was a moment for her to shine as to political savvy and will become a favour owed by Carney in some manner in the future.
Carney is in fact the godfather to one of Freeland’s children. That they are running against each other in the same Liberal leadership race is a testament to how thick is the blood of family.
Members will vote on March 9:
Canadians could sign up to be members of the Liberal Party of Canada up to January 27, 2025.
Nearly 400,000 registered members of the Liberal party signed up by that deadline, and will be eligible to vote in the 2025 Liberal leadership selection process.
So this is about one percent of Canada’s population choosing the next prime minister — at least for a short time, but possibly positioning that person for the next round for a longer stint in the top job.
The Liberals will use a ranked ballot (first, second and third choice). This ends up meaning that a second choice on the ballot might be a strong position if there is no clear winner on the first round and the vote moves to a second round.
As soon as a new Liberal leader is chosen on March 9, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will step down, as he announced on January 6.
===== RELATED:
- Mark Carney wins 2025 Liberal leadership race (March 9, 2025)
- Liberal leadership debate to cover Canada-US, economy, environment (February 24, 2025)
- Liberal leadership debates coming up Feb 24 & 25 (February 22, 2025)
- Liberal leadership race down to four candidates (February 21, 2025)
- Liberal leadership debates in Montreal Feb 24 & 25 (February 18, 2025)
- Liberals will grapple with style vs substance in choosing next leader (January 19, 2025)
- Parliament on pause as Liberals choose new leader (January 6, 2025)
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