On Sunday, the sprint to replace Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader will hit the finish line. If Mark Carney wins, as most political observers expect, he should call a federal election on Monday. No waiting around for NDP leader Jagmeet Singh to change his mind again, and no bothering with testing the confidence of the House of Commons. On Monday, it’s go time.
As a former central banker and economist it’s almost certainly not in Carney’s nature to gamble like this. He’d probably rather get sworn in as prime minister, appoint a cabinet, and maybe govern for a while. He might want to take the measure of the party he now leads, and the people who surround him in caucus. And yes, he probably needs more opportunities to improve his own skills as a retail politician before waging the first election campaign of his life. These are all luxuries neither his party nor his country can afford right now.
From a purely partisan perspective, calling the election immediately deprives Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives of some key vectors of attack. By declining the opportunity to be appointed prime minister without first facing voters in a general election, Carney can neutralize the inevitable accusation that he’s jumping to the front of the line. Instead, he can say he will only accept the title of prime minister after he’s truly earned it in an election.
It also denies his opponents the opportunity to depict him as someone who’s putting party over country. Canada, they’ll say, needs a leader with a clear mandate to deal with Donald Trump and his repeated threats to our economy and sovereignty. On this, they’re right. By pulling the trigger now, Carney would ensure that the ballot question revolves around who’s best equipped to handle the American president, an issue that is far more advantageous for the Liberals than cost of living concerns or their track record in government.
By going to the polls immediately, Carney would also deprive Poilievre’s Conservatives of the opportunity to dump huge amounts of money on pre-writ advertising that would seek to define him negatively. The Conservatives raised a record $41.7 million in 2024, and it stands to reason that they won't have much difficulty raising more money now. With clear spending limits in place during an election campaign, an early trip to the polls would limit that advantage.
Finally, it would deny the NDP an opportunity to reclaim their relevance in the national conversation. By removing Jagmeet Singh and his on-again, off-again promise to vote against the Liberal government from the political equation, Carney would make it clear that the next election is a contest — at least in English Canada — between the Liberals and Conservatives. Collapsing the NDP vote has been key to the recent Liberal resurgence, and a quick election call could help cement it.
This decision wouldn’t be without risk. There’s no question that Carney’s political skills aren’t as sharp as they could be, or that he’s not fully battle-tested yet for the heat of an election campaign. He will make mistakes. He will look every bit the former central banker that he is, prone to using economic jargon and technical language rather than speaking the more populist prose of contemporary politics.
But let’s be honest: he’s not going to get meaningful better at the art of politics in six weeks or six months. And in this particularly bizarre moment we find ourselves in, his supposed weaknesses here might actually play as strengths. The last thing many Canadians want right now is a career politician who’s never held a job in the private sector, and whose rhetoric and patter often sound inescapably Trumpian. They’re looking for the person who can help guide the country through the economic and political storms of the next four years, not their own populist sloganeer.
It wasn’t that long ago that Conservatives were openly begging for an election. If Carney makes the right call here, they may soon live to regret it.
Comments
He's hardly a shoo-in, quite the contrary; odds currently still favour the other guy.
But if he can gag down the need to be very American and wrap himself in the Canadian flag and make the Liberals the party of the Canadian flag, and beat on Americans and beat on Poilievre as their little lapdog whom Musk praises, he has a fair chance.
If the Liberals stay on the defensive, allowing Poilievre to define Carney, they are likely to lose.
The best defence is a good offence. The Liberals must go on the attack.
Poilievre is Canada's Trump — not Canada's answer to Trump.
Let the Liberals connect the dots between Poilievre; anti-vax, freedumb convoy, far-right MAGA types; and the clown occupying the White House. Fill voters' screens with images of Poilievre consorting with the convoy.
Poilievre is already unpopular. His allegiances are suspect. The appeasement and surrender forces are in the Conservative camp.
Poilievre made his bed with the convoy types. Now he must lie in it.
Poilievre's robotic "axe the tax" rhetoric is empty and shallow. In face of Trump's threats, yesterday's dishonest slogans sound more juvenile and immature than ever.
Sadly, Singh's NDP has rendered itself irrelevant.
All three main parties need new leadership, not just the Liberals. Also the Greens.
David Climenhaga (Alberta Politics): "But after channelling MAGA at least since he took coffee out to the convoy occupiers in Ottawa, Mr. Poilievre may have trouble getting his campaign back on track in the face of belligerent Trumpism’s impact on Canada."
"Jason Kenney is back on social media, and boy, does he sound cranky! So what’s up? "
https://albertapolitics.ca/2025/03/jason-kenney-is-back-on-social-media…
Re: "Finally, it would deny the NDP an opportunity to reclaim their relevance in the national conversation. By removing Jagmeet Singh and his on-again, off-again promise to vote against the Liberal government from the political equation, Carney would make it clear that the next election is a contest — at least in English Canada — between the Liberals and Conservatives. Collapsing the NDP vote has been key to the recent Liberal resurgence, and a quick election call could help cement it."
Granted TweedleC would be far better than TweedleP, the NDP might indeed prove extremely relevant should there be a minority government and so ensure that the voice of average Canadians is heard, and not just business and financial elites who want all the new spending programs and subsidies for themselves.
Here we are on the day after. Carney's leadership win was so vast the real news became Freeland's tremendous plummet. 86% vs 8%. The LPC was clearly on the hunt for new blood and fresh air, not to mention a record surge in new memberships and donations.
I believe this margin of winning will lead to a bump in the polls, which will tempt Carney to pull the plug early. Fawcett outlines some relevant advantages in that.
But there is also the danger that the Libs are not fully prepared for a campaign. Going in rushed and unprepared means mistakes will be made, some if them really stupid. One of them would be to purposely spend time and energy trying to crush the NDP, who in the end may be the Lib's saving grace once again. Cabada's greatest thibgs were done in Liberal- NDP minority governments.
In other words, the decision to call an election should be at the midpoint between going early and unprepared, and going late and giving the Conservative's big bag if money time to spill out all over the national landscape.
Carney may need some coaching on batting away Poilievre's three-word jabs and building up a layer of Teflon. He also needs to issue a written platform designed in easy to understand point form language, and to know exactly when to release it, giving the public time to digest it while not giving the opposition time to fully dismiss it. Part if that is anticipating what the opposition will say about the specifics of a Liberal platform.
Carney's expertise is all about economics and crisis management, and he has spent a decade also bringing clean energy and the transition to be his central focus of conversation. But he is also now open to some conventional energy initiatives. Time will tell if that is meant as a sop to Alberta and the oversize role oil and gas has played in Canada's export regime and to take some of the wind out of Poilievre's sails in this moment in time.
In all likelihood, though, Carney will return to clean energy and embracing the transition as Canada's best way to get out of the American orbit and build our own future. I'll take Carney at his word on that.