Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 18, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba KILDONAN PARK GOLF COURSE R E D R I V E R C H I E F P E G U I S T R A I L M A I N S T P E R I M E T E R H W Y R I D G E C R E S T A V E S C O T I A S T H E N D E R S O N H W Y H E N D E R S O N H W Y River Ridge II 2701 Scotia St. Winnipeg, MB A s s i s t e d L i v i n g E n h a n c e d O n l y 2 S u i t e s w i t h P r i v a t e B a l c o n i e s R e m a i n i n g Enhanced Assisted Living provides care and support 24/7 allowing residents to Age In Place safely and comfortably throughout the years! Call Chassity to Arrange Your Personal Tour 204.272.0369 PROUDLY CANADIAN www.allseniorscare.com Worry-Free Living At Its Finest A14 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM OTTAWA — The federal Liberals are running their first leadership race in more than a decade to replace the departing Justin Trudeau. Candidates must declare by Jan. 23 and pay a $350,000 fee to enter the race. The winner will be named on March 9. Here’s a quick look at who’s in and who’s out. Who’s in ● Chandra Arya — Arya became the first current member of the Liberal caucus to announce his candidacy just four days after Trudeau’s announcement. Arya — first elected as an MP in an Ottawa suburb in 2015 — has said he does not believe he needs to speak French to become prime minister, came out against Trudeau’s carbon pricing system and wants to abolish the monarchy. The 61-year-old member of Parliament for Ne- pean was born in India and was a technology executive before entering politics. ● Jaime Battiste — The Cape Breton MP and chair of the Liberal Indigenous caucus became the first Mi’kmaw lawmaker elected to Parliament in 2019. Battiste expressed interested in running on Jan. 13 and said he was putting together an exploratory committee to help him prepare a bid to become the first Indigenous prime minister. The 46-year-old MP for Sydney-Victoria — also a champion powwow dancer and award-winning musician — grew up in Eskasoni First Nation. Battiste has said he’ll help ensure First Nations policing services have adequate funding and that he’ll convene a first ministers meeting to discuss the price on pollution if he secures the top job. He also said he’ll put the $47.8 billion proposed deal to reform the First Nations child welfare system announced last summer back on the table. ● Frank Baylis — A former Montreal Liberal MP and businessman, the 62-year-old Baylis was the first to announce his candidacy. He posted on social media Jan. 9 that he had put forward his name and intended to make an official announce- ment, which he later did on Jan. 15. Baylis ran in 2015 under the Liberal banner but chose not to run again in 2019. He sold his company Baylis Medical Company Inc. to Boston Scientific Corporation in 2022 for $1.75 billion. ● Mark Carney — The former governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England held a public campaign launch in Edmonton on Jan. 16. Liberal organizers have sought to bring the star technocrat from the world of global finance into the party fold for the past decade. Over the summer, he took on a role advising the party on economics. Born in Fort Smith, N.W.T, and raised in Edmonton, the 59-year-old Carney has been touted by supporters as a “Northerner and a Westerner.” He is backed by several Liberal MPs, including George Chahal, Sophie Chatel, Salma Zahid, Francesco Sorbara and Patrick Weiler. ● Chrystia Freeland — The former finance minister, who has been a Liberal MP since 2013, announced her plans to run for party leadership on Jan. 17, with her official launch scheduled for Jan. 19. She played a key role in Trudeau’s govern- ment until the two had a falling out in December and she quit cabinet when faced with being reassigned. Freeland, who is 56 years old, was born in Peace River, Alta. She has received political endorsements from multiple high-profile Liberals, including former cabinet ministers Marie-Claude Bibeau and Randy Boissonnault, Health Minister Mark Holland and Liberal MPs Ben Carr, Ken McDonald, Stéphane Lauzon, Rob Oliphant and Anthony Housefather. Who’s considering ● Karina Gould — The 37-year-old millennial is known for going head-to-head with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre in Parliament. She was first elected in 2015 and later became the first cabinet minister to have a baby while in office and take maternity leave. Within the party, she is known for getting the national child care program over the finish line. Gould is expected to launch her campaign on Jan. 19. Who’s out ● Anita Anand — Transport minister and MP for Oakville, Ont., 57-year-old Anand was once a rising star in cabinet with leadership aspirations. She declined to enter the race on Jan. 11 and also announced she will not seek re-election in her riding. ● François-Philippe Champagne — The industry minister said on Jan. 14 that instead of running, he will focus on ensuring the government is ready to protect Canadian industry from the trade threats posed by incoming U.S. president Donald Trump. The 54-year-old Champagne, MP for Saint-Maurice— Champlain since 2015, said “it was probably the most difficult decision of my life, but I think it was the right one at the right time.” ● Christy Clark — The former B.C. Liberal premier with- drew herself from contention on Jan. 14, days after her team had signalled she was very close to declaring publicly she was running. Clark, who is 59 years old, said there was not enough time to mount a successful campaign, and that her French was not good enough to connect with francophone Canadians. The decision also came days after she was forced to backtrack from her claim that she was never a member of the Conservative party. ● Mélanie Joly — The 46-year-old foreign affairs minister dropped out of the race on Jan. 10. She said that while she wants to become the first woman to lead the Liberal party, she decided it’s a bad time to leave her job as Canada’s top diplo- mat as the country faces an existential tariff threat from Trump. ● Dominic LeBlanc — LeBlanc is a longtime friend and ally of Trudeau who jumped into the finance portfolio when Free- land suddenly quit. The 57-year-old dashed the hopes of many of his fellow caucus mates on Jan. 8 by ruling out a leadership bid, citing the trade threats posed by the Trump administration. ● Steven MacKinnon — The minister of labour, first elected to represent Gatineau, Que, in 2015, indicated interest in the party’s top job and has spoken about the importance of having a bilingual leader. The 58-year-old MacKinnon bowed out of the running on Jan. 12, saying that the time frame is too short to mount a campaign. ● Jonathan Wilkinson — The energy minister and B.C. MP was a clean tech CEO before running for office. He has played a big part in driving the Liberals’ climate policies and was tasked with trying to bring Alberta on board for some less popular measures, including national regulations to end the use of fossil fuels as a source of electricity. Wilkinson, who is 59 years old, announced on Jan. 17 that he would not seek the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. — The Canadian Press O TTAWA — Less than five weeks after she resigned her cabinet seat over a dispute with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland has launched her campaign to replace him as the leader of the Liberal party. Freeland’s official campaign launch is set for Sunday in Toronto but she used social media Friday to make it clear her intention to join the race. “I’m running to fight for Canada,” she said in a post on X. Freeland also wrote an op-ed in the Toronto Star laying out how she would respond to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Canadian goods. Trump has threatened to bring in a 25 per cent tariff across the board when he takes office on Monday. Freeland proposed a dollar-for-dollar response, which she said could gener- ate up to $150 billion in a year in rev- enue for the Canadian government that could be used to help people and busi- nesses affected by U.S. tariffs. “Florida orange growers, Michigan dishwasher manufacturers and Wis- consin dairy farmers: brace yourselves. Canada is America’s largest export market — bigger than China, Japan, the U.K., and France combined. If pushed, our response will be the single largest trade blow the U.S. economy has ever endured,” Freeland wrote. Freeland was a key player in re- sponding to Trump’s tariffs during his first term in the White House. As the minister of foreign affairs she oversaw a dollar-for-dollar tariff response to Trump’s imposition of import taxes on Canadian steel and aluminum in 2018. Freeland abruptly resigned as fi- nance minister and deputy prime min- ister in December, citing her disagree- ment with Trudeau over government spending decisions and the need to save funds to respond if Trump goes ahead with new tariffs. “We need to take that threat extreme- ly seriously. That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war,” she wrote in her resignation letter. Freeland and former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney are the high- est-profile candidates in the race to be- come prime minister. Carney launched his campaign in Edmonton on Thursday, saying he will be “completely focused on getting our economy back on track.” He has also pledged to repeal the consumer carbon price if he becomes Liberal leader, and to replace it with a “comprehensive plan” that he promised to release over the next several weeks. Carney is not a member of Parlia- ment but could serve as prime minister without a seat in the House of Com- mons. On Thursday, he said he needs to become an MP but did not say where he might run. Freeland resigned from cabinet on Dec. 16 after Trudeau told her he was replacing her as finance minister with Carney. He did not end up taking the job. The criticism that resulted from Freeland’s resignation led Trudeau to announce on Jan. 6 that he will step down as leader when the Liberal party chooses his successor. It is set to do that on March 9. Government House leader Karina Gould is expected to launch her cam- paign in the coming days. Ottawa MP Chandra Arya has said he is running, as has former Montreal MP Frank Bay- lis. Potential candidates have less than a week left to decide if they will enter the race. They have to pay $50,000 im- mediately and the rest of the $350,000 entrance fee by mid-February to make it onto the ballot. A number of Liberal MPs are public- ly supporting Freeland and Carney in the contest. Freeland’s supporters include Health Minister Mark Holland, former cab- inet ministers Marie-Claude Bibeau and Randy Boissonnault, Liberal MPs Ben Carr, Ken McDonald, Stéphane Lauzon, Rob Oliphant and Anthony Housefather, and former longtime Lib- eral MP Wayne Easter. Housefather posted his endorsement Thursday evening, saying he trusts Freeland to manage Canada’s relation- ship with the United States. He also said he encourages candi- dates to drop the Liberal government’s planned changes to the capital gains in- clusion rate. The policy was proposed in the last federal budget during Free- land’s tenure as finance minister, and has been the target of attacks from the federal Conservatives, who say they will repeal the policy if they take of- fice. Liberal MPs George Chahal, So- phie Chatel, Salma Zahid, Francesco Sorbara, Wayne Long and Patrick Weil- er are among those throwing their sup- port behind Carney. Other caucus members, such as Im- migration Minister Marc Miller, have declined to weigh in. — The Canadian Press NEWS I CANADA SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 2025 Freeland running for Liberal leadership Former finance minister joins Carney as top contenders to take over from Trudeau DAN Vandal is the latest Manitoba Liberal MP to throw their support behind Chrystia Freeland to lead the party. The former finance minister and deputy prime minister announced on social media early Friday morning she was “running to fight for Canada.” Vandal released a statement in the afternoon endorsing her candidacy. “Chrystia possesses an intimate under- standing of how government works, a record of achievement in the most critical portfolios of government, and the necessary political experience,” the Saint Boniface—St. Vital MP said Friday afternoon. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he would be resigning and prorogued Parliament this month after facing calls for him to step down. Freeland resigned from Trudeau’s cabinet Dec. 16, suggesting she and him did not see eye-to-eye on the future of Canada’s economy. Vandal joins two of Manitoba’s three other Liberal MPs in their support of Freeland: Kevin Lamoureux, who endorsed her in a social media post Wednesday, and Ben Carr, who did the same. MP Terry Duguid said he has no plans to endorse any candidate. “I was appointed as co-chair of the National Liberal Campaign just over a year ago, and this is a role I take very seriously as I continue to recruit candidates for the next election,” he said in an email statement. “This position requires me to remain neutral, and as such I must refrain from supporting any candidate at this time.” Vandal backing Freeland ANJA KARADEGLIJA AND SARAH RITCHIE ETHAN CAIRNS / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Chrystia Freeland is set to officially launch her campaign for the Liberal leadership at an event on Sunday in Toronto. A look at Liberal candidates KYLE DUGGAN ;