Leadership race paves way for next era of the Liberal Party: strategist

Liberal Strategist Sabrina Grover discusses the leadership race with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins

Liberal strategist Sabrina Grover discusses the Liberal Party of Canada’s leadership race with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: Let’s start with Mark Carney. Calgary MP George Chahal sent out an email endorsing the former Bank of Canada governor, encouraging support when he launches in Edmonton Thursday. Beyond having grown up in the city, what would motivate making the announcement in Edmonton?

Sabrina Grover: I think there’s a real focus from Mr. Carney to try and go beyond this Ottawa-Toronto-Ontario bubble that perhaps he is kind of perceived as being in. I think when people think Mark Carney, they don’t think Edmonton, they don’t think Alberta, they don’t think out west. They think Bay Street, they think global forums, they think of Canada, Bank of England.

So I think there’s a part of this Edmonton launch that’s maybe trying to soften his image in a kind of way, and make him a little bit more relatable outside of those major urban centres like Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver that he might be aiming at.

MH: With that in mind, could there be an expectation that if he wins leadership, he’ll run in an Edmonton riding?

SG: I think that would be an interesting proposition, but it feels very unlikely. Mr. Carney doesn’t live in Alberta, or in Edmonton, and hasn’t for quite a long time. I think he’s really established himself as being, kind of, an Ontario person now.

So I think it would be unlikely for him to actually run in the province of Alberta, but I think that this is an opportunity for him to demonstrate to Albertan liberals in particular — remember that we’re not in a campaign yet — that he is from this province, that he can represent the interests of Albertans just as much as he can represent the interests of those in downtown Toronto.

MH: Chrystia Freeland can lay claims much the same, having grown up in Alberta as well, and is said to be launching her campaign ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration, apparently with specifics on a retaliatory tariffs plan.

Is responding to Trump what liberals will be looking for most? How dominant a theme do you expect that to be in this leadership race?

SG: I think that if you had asked liberals in September of 2024 what the most important message would have been, I don’t think that Donald Trump would have been there because we didn’t know who was going to win. But since Mr. Trump has really elevated his threats and elevated his positioning on Canada, not only on the tariff side but also these offhand comments about Canada becoming the 51st state, that’s a real significant and existential threat to this country from an economic perspective.

Tying that to the affordability crisis, affordability continues to be the number one issue that Canadians care about, and certainly that liberals care about as well, but if you see a 25-per cent tariff come in on Canada that affects the affordability hugely, and so I think that it makes sense for Liberal candidates like Ms. Freeland to be attacking that head on.

MH: How do you see discussions around the carbon tax factoring into this race?

SG: I think that’s going to be a really interesting question. Obviously I think Justin Trudeau perceives the carbon tax as being his legacy, though over the last several months, or last several years, I think we’ve seen a bit of a dismantling of that and so that it doesn’t really retain that same pizzazz that it maybe did when it first came out.

I think that candidates are going to be really careful about how they talk about the carbon tax, and in particular, I think there’s going to be opportunities for them to start weighing in about what it looks like to move away from it before they head into a federal election, and actually to test that message with the rest of Canadians.

MH: The list of contenders has certainly narrowed in the last few days. Names like Christy Clark, and Francois Philippe Champagne falling by the wayside. What does that signal?

SG: For folks like Christy Clark who really haven’t been part of the infrastructure of the party for the last 10,15, years, certainly under the Trudeau mandate, I think the tightened timeline on membership makes a huge difference.

You’ve got only, really, about three weeks from when this race opened, to when the membership cut off is. That’s very, very tight in terms of a leadership race and I think it makes it really hard if you don’t necessarily have the infrastructure or the contacts or the connections in place to be able to ramp up quickly enough by the 27th to get the folks on your side.

For people like Mr. Champagne, it’s unclear why he maybe chose not to step in this time. It’s a high fundraising number — $350,000 is the entry fee — so that’s potentially part of it. But I think maybe they’re just biding their time right now. They also might be waiting to see what happens after this leadership and election, and potentially building up something for the future.

MH: How contentious a leadership race do you see this building to? Especially if it ends up being a showdown between Christia Freeland and Mark Carney?

SG: I think that in the best interest of the party, and heading into an election immediately after, what would be good for the candidates to do is exhibit some politeness, respect, a sense of decorum, and not having it be a nasty race.

I do think, though, that there is going to be a big discussion about what this next iteration of the party looks like. We have a tendency now to build parties in the eye of the leader, whether that’s at provincial levels or at the federal level, and I think that that’s certainly what this party has been. It really has been in the eye of Justin Trudeau.

So what does this next era look like and how does that person differentiate themselves and differentiate the values of the party and provide a new offering to Canadians, but also in particular, liberals?