Help wanted: mercenary to lead Liberals; zero benefits, graveyard-whistling skills an asset
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/01/2025 (270 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
What if nobody wants the job?
When the long-serving leader of a struggling political party decides to step down, there is no assurance the best candidates will step forward to fill the vacuum. In these instances, personal ambition will always be tempered with political reality.
Put another way, who really wants to seize the leadership of a party that is headed into the political abyss?
That is, no doubt, the primary question Liberals are asking themselves as they consider running to replace leader and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. There won’t be much time to contemplate their answers.
Candidates must declare by Jan. 23 and post a $350,000 entry fee. Membership rolls close four days later, and the Liberals hope to announce a new leader by March 9. On March 24, Parliament is scheduled to resume with a speech from the throne; opposition parties are expected to look for the first opportunity to vote down the Liberal government within days of the resumption of proceedings.
Even with a tight timeline, the leadership race has only attracted lesser-known long shots.
Former Liberal MP Frank Baylis, a medical technology executive, has indicated that he will run. So, too, has Ontario MP Chandra Arya, who is the first current member of the Liberal caucus to step into the ring.
Even with dim prospects and a tight timeline, it would be inconceivable that the leadership would come down to a choice between Baylis and Arya. As of now, none of the higher-profile options has stepped forward.
In the “poised to run” category, there is former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney, long rumoured to be ready to make a leap into politics. The same goes for former deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland, the woman who essentially unseated Trudeau with her resignation from cabinet to protest his recent, reckless affordability measures.
A host of other promising but less-known candidates are reportedly considering bids: Ontario MP and Transport Minister Anita Anand; Quebec MP and Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne; Nova Scotia MP and former housing minister Sean Fraser.
There are also some dark-horse external candidates as well, led by former British Columbia premier Christy Clark.
It’s always hard to predict with any certainty, but you can bet a good number of the potential candidates listed above will bow out before Jan. 23. Some previously mentioned in the likely-to-run category have declined: Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, frequently mentioned as a potential successor to Trudeau, announced Friday she will not run. The same goes for Finance Minister Dominic Leblanc, who said he would rather focus on fighting a potential trade war with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump.
The caution with which potential candidates are proceeding must be a major concern for the Liberal party establishment, who know from painful experience what can happen in a race to assume the leadership of a party headed toward the political wilderness.
In 2006, the Liberals had no shortage of interesting candidates seeking to fill the leadership after the departure of Paul Martin. The Liberals had lost government to the Conservatives and leader Stephen Harper but still managed to win 103 seats.
At the leadership convention, a series of backroom alliances among longer-shot candidates snookered the perceived front-runners, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae, and left former academic Stéphane Dion as the leader. After being trounced in the 2008 election, Dion tried to broker a deal with the NDP and Bloc Quebecois to form a coalition and topple the minority Tory government led by Stephen Harper. A strategy largely untried in modern Canadian political history, blowback to that deal would ultimately spell the end of Dion’s leadership.
Could something like that happen again? Leadership races often represent the least-altruistic expression of politics and, as a result, you can never say never. A more likely fear for the Liberals, however, is that no candidate with sufficient gravitas steps forward.
Every potential candidate knows they would be seeking to lead what is essentially a suicide mission.
If the Conservatives and other opposition parties are successful in late March at toppling the Liberal government and its new leader, there will be precious little time to rebuild support for a party that is reeling and damaged from Trudeau’s clumsy exit. A good leader could play the long game by ceding the election result this year with the hope they can make the party competitive again in four years. Even that scenario seems shaky at this point.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is riding high atop a wave of anti-progressive sentiment that should be sustained at least throughout the next four years. Thus, the next Liberal leader will be tasked with rebuilding a centrist-progressive party in an environment where centrist voters are buying Poilievre’s anti-woke messaging and progressive voters have essentially abandoned voting at all.
Every democracy needs more than one viable political party from which to choose.
Over the next two weeks, we’ll find out if the Liberals have the mettle to cling to viability, or whether they will — like Thelma and Louise — hold hands, close their eyes and try to enjoy the ride over the edge of the cliff.
dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986. Read more about Dan.
Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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