Who’s next? The contenders to replace a troubled Justin Trudeau

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has repeatedly said he has no plans to resign, insisting he will lead the Liberal Party of Canada into the next election, currently set for October 2025.

But after months of dismal polls, the pressure on him is mounting after his party failed to keep a formerly safe Liberal Toronto riding in a June byelection, signalling growing unpopularity with this government among Canadians. The loss prompted calls for Trudeau to step down from former Liberal ministers, former British Columbia premier Christy Clark, and current MPs within his own caucus.

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As things stand, Trudeau’s chances of winning a fourth term range from slim to none. Recent polls have shown a 20- to 22-point lead for the Conservatives over the Liberals, consistent with trends in the past year. Yet Trudeau and many of his ministers remain convinced he is still the best chance they’ve got and the political shakeup south of the border does not seem to have convinced them otherwise. 

Liberal strategist Andrew Perez, one of the first Liberals to call for Trudeau to resign after the party’s shocking byelection defeat in June, told the National Post that the Liberals could “draw a bit of inspiration” from the U.S. Democrats after Joe Biden announced he was stepping down.

So far, only former Liberal MP Frank Baylis has openly said he is considering a leadership run. But here are the people who could be possible contenders should Trudeau change his mind and step aside. Some are predictable possibilities, but others might surprise you.

Mark Carney, The Banker

Conservatives are giddy in anticipation of campaigning against — and beating — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the next election. If Trudeau steps down as Liberal leader, their second choice as a mark would be Mark Carney.

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Rumours have been swirling about Trudeau trying to recruit Carney as finance minister to replace Chrystia Freeland. In a July news conference, Trudeau revealed that he has been in talks with Carney “for years now about getting him to join federal politics,” adding that “he would be an outstanding addition at a time when Canadians need good people to step up in politics.”

Carney served as governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013, and governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020. He has navigated challenging economic times, having dealt with the impacts of the 2008 economic crisis on Canada, and the consequences of the 2016 Brexit referendum, which he said caused soaring inflation in the United Kingdom.

Since 2020, he has been chairman and head of impact investing at Brookfield Asset Management. In 2023 he was named chairman of Bloomberg Inc. He also serves as the United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance and said in a recent interview the goal of net zero is “the greatest commercial opportunity of our time.”

Carney appeared at the Liberal Party of Canada’s virtual national convention in 2021, which first sparked talk of him running for the party. But he has held off from entering active politics, instead embarking on the speaking circuit. In a speech in April, he seemed to criticize the recent federal budget, saying that governments that “spend too much and invest too little will eventually pay a heavy price.” The federal budget, which forecasts a deficit of nearly $40 billion this year, has been under fire for its increase in capital gains taxation.

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Carney’s remarks prompted Conservatives to claim “it’s clear” Carney is vying for Trudeau’s job. Leader Pierre Poilievre has already begun to define the person he sees as his potential future adversary. This past spring, he started referring to the former central banker as “Carbon Tax Carney,” because of his historic support for Trudeau’s unpopular climate policy. And Conservatives recently embarked on a fruitless month-long attempt to drag Carney in front of a House of Commons finance committee.

For the Conservatives, Carney embodies an out-of-touch banker, a global elite who cannot possibly understand the struggles of the common folk. But Liberals who want the party to return to the political centre could be swayed by his economic expertise and business acumen, plus the fact he comes without the baggage of having served under Trudeau.

The downside is that Carney has never served in politics and would have a steep learning curve.

Chrystia Freeland, The Deputy

As deputy prime minister and finance minister, Chrystia Freeland is the most senior minister in Trudeau’s cabinet and has long been considered the heiress apparent to replace Trudeau. However, some strategically placed leaks have suggested tensions between the Prime Minister’s Office and Freeland over her messaging around government economic policies. Freeland has brushed off those concerns, insisting that in her view, she has the confidence she needs to do her job effectively.

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A former Morneau staffer noted that those leaks were reminiscent of 2020, when Bill Morneau was forced to resign as finance minister during the WE Charity scandal.

Freeland came to politics after a career in business journalism that included stints at The Globe and Mail and Thomson Reuters. She studied at Harvard and Oxford. During an exchange year at a school in Kyiv during the Cold War, she worked with pro-democracy groups in Ukraine and was surveilled by the Soviet KGB. Since 2014, she has been barred from entering Russia.

Freeland was born in Peace River, Alberta to a farming family, something she often references. She won her first seat in Parliament in Toronto—Centre in a 2013 byelection. She moved for the 2015 election to the nearby riding of University—Rosedale, which she has continued to represent ever since.

Freeland was appointed to international trade minister when the Liberals came to power in 2015, and sealed a trade deal between Canada and the EU that was largely negotiated under the Harper government. After the election of Donald Trump in 2016, she was moved to foreign affairs minister and worked on the renegotiation of NAFTA. Trump rebuked her at one point, without mentioning her name, but said he didn’t like Canada’s representative in the negotiations. Here at home, she got some credit for the tough negotiation, with Maclean’s magazine putting her contentiously on the cover, claiming she had “just saved the country from economic catastrophe.”

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When Bill Morneau resigned as finance minister in August 2020, Freeland was moved to the post. Freeland has presented four federal budgets in the job. She has lowered debt levels from the height of the pandemic but added massive amounts of new spending on social programs in each of her four budgets.

On paper, Freeland has the smarts and skills necessary to lead a federal party. She has an extensive list of connections, speaks multiple languages and has a reputation for understanding economic fundamentals and geopolitics, making her an effective spokesperson on the Russia-Ukraine War, for example.

But Freeland has struggled to relate to everyday Canadians’ concerns about affordability, inflation, and interest rate hikes, insisting that Canada is doing better than most. She was mocked for trying to empathize with struggling families by saying she had made the decision to cancel her Disney Plus subscription. And while trying to sound sympathetic about high fuel prices, she said she doesn’t need to own a car living in downtown Toronto.

Freeland also played a major role campaigning in the Toronto—St. Paul’s byelection, where the Liberal candidate in the riding that is adjacent to hers was her former chief of staff. It ended in disaster for the Liberals.

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Melanie Joly, The Underdog

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly has had more bumps on the road than most of her colleagues in cabinet, but she powers on with her sights set on someday having the top job.

She was appointed to her current role in 2021, becoming Justin Trudeau’s fifth minister in the foreign affairs file. Since then, she has had to deal with Canada’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s foreign interference, India’s alleged assassination of a Canadian citizen, and deep divisions in the Liberal caucus over the Israel-Hamas war.

Joly has been determined to prove that she could shake up the political world to make it more appealing to young people. She studied law and practised at two major Montreal firms, Stikeman Elliott and Davies Ward Phillips and Vineberg. With two Stikeman lawyers, Stéphanie Raymond-Bougie and Paul St-Pierre Plamondon (the current leader of the Parti Québécois), she launched Génération d’idées, a think tank and advocacy group for people under 35.

In 2013, Joly founded a Montreal municipal party, Le Vrai changement pour Montréal, and surprised everyone when she landed a close second behind Denis Coderre in the mayor’s race. That same year, she was appointed to head the Quebec advisory committee for Justin Trudeau’s leadership campaign and went on to become a Liberal candidate.

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Joly was elected in the Montreal riding of Ahuntsic-Cartierville in 2015 and was appointed minister of Canadian heritage. Her time in the role was rocky; she was belittled in Quebec for the government’s $500-million deal with Netflix for its lack of commitment to French-language content. She was shuffled in 2018 to tourism, official languages and la Francophonie — a move widely seen as a demotion.

But she convinced Trudeau to change the Liberal party’s traditional stance on official languages to reflect Quebecers’ fear of declining French usage. As national co-chair of the Liberal party campaign in 2021, Joly helped salvage her party’s chances of re-election and was rewarded with her current position.

As the country’s top diplomat, the Israel-Hamas war has been her biggest test and it seems she has managed to anger both Jewish and Muslim communities. The war has also taken a toll on her personally, as she has been confronted by angry Palestinian supporters on the streets and has faced anti-Israel protests outside her home.

Joly never sulks for too long.  She recently secured a high-visibility trip with her counterpart in China — the first time since 2017 that a Canadian foreign affairs minister has visited the country.

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But those close to her know she has had her eyes on the prize for a long time. “She’s never hidden that she’s interested in being the leader of the Liberal party,” Raymond-Bougie, her friend and former colleague, told Maclean’s in 2016.

Dominic LeBlanc, The Fixer

In April, The Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin revealed Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Public Safety, wanted the top Liberal job and had met with a former Liberal cabinet minister to discuss plans to succeed his good friend Trudeau.

LeBlanc subsequently denied that he was planning to run for Liberal leader, insisting he planned to run as a candidate in the next election under Trudeau’s leadership. But he did not respond when asked if he had been having discussions about a potential run or whether he thinks Trudeau should resign. More recently, LeBlanc downplayed a Liberal MP’s call for Trudeau to resign, saying it is “not constructive.”

LeBlanc could be a strong contender for leader if he’s interested. He’s an experienced and talented politician, good at smoothing things over between political parties and between provinces and the federal government. He is also a smooth-talker, who can crack a joke to de-escalate the most serious of tensions, in English or in French.

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LeBlanc took over as public safety minister last summer after a series of missteps from his predecessor, Marco Mendicino (the final straw for Mendicino was being unaware that notorious serial killer Paul Bernardo had been transferred to a medium-security prison).

In the past year, LeBlanc has managed to get all recognized parties to agree to the terms of a public inquiry on foreign interference and find a judge willing to chair it — not an easy feat, considering the issue cost former governor general David Johnston his reputation after a disastrous turn as the special rapporteur on foreign interference.

LeBlanc comes from strong political roots. His father, Roméo LeBlanc, served as Liberal fisheries minister under then-prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Both families were close; Dominic even babysat Justin Trudeau (he’s four years older than the prime minister). Roméo LeBlanc went on to serve as senator and the first Acadian governor general.

Dominic Leblanc studied political science in Toronto and then law in New Brunswick but would soon follow in his father’s political footsteps. He worked as summer chauffeur for then-prime minister Jean Chrétien before becoming his aide. He got his master’s in law at Harvard while seeking the Liberal nomination in Beauséjour, N.B.

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He was first elected in 2000 and has been re-elected seven times. He attempted to run for the party leadership as a centrist in 2008 against Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae. “Canadians want a modern, centrist, pragmatic Liberal party. I learned that from Mr. Chrétien. It was drilled into us,” he told Maclean’s magazine at the time.

LeBlanc has been a key player in Justin Trudeau’s government, serving variously as House leader, fisheries minister, intergovernmental affairs minister and president of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, in the meantime battling a rare form of cancer.

LeBlanc has a natural-born talent for politics, but his proximity to Trudeau and the Liberal establishment could hurt him as he tries to convince Canadians why he would be a different kind of Liberal leader.

François-Philippe Champagne, The Dealmaker

The other little guy from Shawinigan has earned himself the nickname of “Energizer Bunny” for his seemingly boundless energy on the industry file. It seems to be paying off: since 2021, François-Philippe Champagne has made deal after deal with international electric vehicle and battery firms, luring them with taxpayer handouts, mostly for Ontario and Quebec.

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His first big win was to convince Volkswagen to implement its inaugural gigafactory outside of Europe here in Canada, instead of the United States. Then came Stellantis, Northvolt, Honda and Ford, all of which will receive billions of dollars in subsidies but are helping situate Canada as an EV battery supply-chain powerhouse.

In 2024, for the first time, Canada ranked at the top of BloombergNEF’s annual EV battery supply chain report among 30 countries, outperforming China. That is mostly thanks to Champagne’s sales pitch that Canada is a stable and predictable country in an unpredictable world.

Champagne grew up in Shawinigan, Que., and studied law in Montreal and Ohio before moving overseas. He worked as a senior attorney in Italy before moving to Switzerland and the United Kingdom, where he was promised a bright future as a senior business executive. But he chose to move back home to seek elected office.

Champagne was elected MP in 2015 and became parliamentary secretary to then-minister of finance Bill Morneau. He rapidly rose to cabinet two years later, serving in three successive portfolios — international trade, infrastructure and foreign affairs — before becoming industry minister.

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In a 2009 interview, he admitted to his prime ministerial ambitions, saying that “if Canadians believe in what I can do, I will certainly give it a shot.” But in a 2023 Politico profile, he downplayed the matter, saying his job is to “deliver” for the government.

If he does seek the Liberal leadership, expect to see a business-oriented candidate who would work to return the party to the political centre. But one can also expect Champagne to emulate the charm, candour and populist undertones of his political mentor, the original little guy from Shawinigan, former prime minister Jean Chrétien.

Anita Anand, The Keener

Anita Anand has made it clear she intends to run for the top job one day — to the point the prime minister’s inner circle reportedly told her last year to cool her heels because she was too actively organizing for an imminent leadership run.

Previously a law professor at the University of Toronto, Anand became a key player in the Liberal government shortly after she was elected in 2019 and has proven herself to be a quick study on tough files. She is, in her own words, the “queen of preparation.”

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The MP for Oakville was thrown into the spotlight during the COVID-19 pandemic when, as a novice minister of public services and procurement, she was tasked with securing personal protective equipment and vaccines for Canada. Despite intense global competition and a rocky start, she eventually pulled it off.

In 2021, Anand became the second woman to assume the role of minister of national defence, after former prime minister Kim Campbell in the 1990s. The Canadian Armed Forces was reeling from its handling of sexual misconduct within the forces, and faced heavy criticism over its response during the surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban.

The following year saw the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and pressure for all NATO members to reach their defence spending targets of spending two per cent of GDP on the military. Anand said she presented some “aggressive options” ahead of the 2022 budget to either spend the two per cent, stay under it, or go above that threshold. The federal government ultimately opted to increase its spending while staying below its NATO target, pledging $8 billion in new funding over five years in the 2022 federal budget.

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Anand was shuffled in 2023 to president of the Treasury Board — a surprise move, but one she repeatedly insisted was not a demotion. Now, instead of advocating for more spending, she is responsible for overseeing budget cuts. Shortly after the move, Anand told her colleagues they should find $15 billion in spending cuts.

Anand has proven to be a serious and studious politician. She has been practising her French skills, and benefits from a large support network in the Greater Toronto Area. But if she were to face a fierce opponent like Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, just being well-prepared won’t be enough.

Sean Fraser, The Millennial

When Liberal strategist Andrew Perez tweeted in December that Housing Minister Sean Fraser is “the future of the federal Liberal Party” and “a potential future party leader,” Conservatives went nuts. Or so Perez told Postmedia’s Brian Lilley recently on the Full Comment podcast.

“He’s a millennial, he’s smart, he’s a good communicator, he’s attractive,” said Perez in explaining his reasoning about the young minister. Tories, meanwhile, were hoping for Fraser to lose his seat in Nova Scotia to the Conservatives and pointing to the immigration mess that happened under his watch.

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Fraser has the uncommon ability to get under Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s skin. In question period last September, Fraser told Poilievre to go back to his image consultant and “start wearing glasses again” in response to Conservative criticism about the Liberal housing plan. Poilievre went after Fraser, who he often refers to as the “most incompetent immigration minister in Canadian history.”

Fraser, 40, grew up with five sisters in Nova Scotia. He studied kinesiology at St. Francis Xavier University, went to law school at Dalhousie, got his master’s degree in the Netherlands and practised human rights law in South Africa. He then went into corporate law in Calgary before returning home to run for federal office in 2015.

He spent a few years serving as parliamentary secretary to the ministers of the environment and finance before making his way to cabinet in 2021 as immigration minister. He was then shuffled in 2023 to the housing portfolio, a time when Poilievre was hammering the government for creating a housing affordability crisis

Since then, Fraser has been focused on increasing housing supply. He has been criss-crossing the country, offering millions of dollars to cities to get housing built faster. And he hasn’t hesitated to pull federal funding from provinces that don’t deliver on their housing commitments, like he did recently to Ontario.

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A year later, Canadians are still complaining about the cost of housing, but at least they see a federal minister trying to do something about it. That does not mean Fraser is out of the line of fire. He was responsible for the immigration file, which many say exacerbated the housing crisis by increasing demand for housing and inflating prices. This spring, he said he supports Poilievre’s idea of tying the number of immigrants to Canada to the number of homes built.

Marc Miller, The Anti-Poilievre

Immigration Minister Marc Miller is well-known on Parliament Hill for speaking his mind, especially when it comes to Pierre Poilievre. He is quick to call out the Conservative leader, which makes him a rallying force in a Liberal caucus that is looking a little dispirited lately.

Miller has called Poilievre a “charlatan,” a “snake-oil salesman” and compared him to a wrestling manager from the ’80s. When asked if Poilievre was being silenced after being expelled from the House of Commons for unparliamentary language, Miller said: “That guy’s never shut his mouth in his life … I think it would be good if he shut up once in a while.”

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Miller, 51, is one of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s oldest friends, the two having met in high school at the prestigious Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf in Montreal. They travelled to Africa together as young men and Miller was part of Trudeau’s wedding party.

Before entering politics, Miller served as an infantry soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces and worked as a lawyer for Stikeman Elliot in Montreal, Stockholm and New York, specializing in commercial law and mergers and acquisitions. He went on to help Trudeau’s successful bid for the Liberal party leadership in 2013 as adviser and fundraising director.

Miller was first elected in 2015 in the downtown Montreal riding of Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs. As a backbencher MP, he quietly learned the Mohawk language to prove to his non-French-speaking Liberal colleagues that it was possible to learn another language while juggling parliamentary duties. In 2017, he made history when he delivered a statement entirely in Mohawk in the House of Commons.

Miller went on to serve as minister of Indigenous services in 2019 and minister of Crown-Indigenous relations in 2021, before being shuffled to the troubled immigration file last summer.

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After his government sharply increased immigration levels, which added pressure on housing, health care and other services, Miller decreased the number of temporary residents. With stories emerging of international students unable to find places to live or being forced by high living costs to turn to food banks to eat, Miller capped the number of international student visas for two years.

Miller has proven to be a combative player in the Liberal government, ready to rally the troops for a fight against the Conservatives. But his close friendship with Trudeau could prove to be his Achilles heel in any leadership bid. He has already stated his support for his friend staying on as leader and has called for MPs to move on after the party’s shocking defeat in Toronto—St. Paul’s.

Still, his straight talk could be more of what Liberals need in a post-Trudeau era.

Jean Charest, The Statesman

Call it a wild card. Jean Charest’s first problem in any quest for the leadership of the Liberal party is that he’s fresh off a run for the Conservative party, where he furiously denied being a Liberal (after leading the Liberals in Quebec) and was demolished. Admittedly, not a good start.

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But Charest is one of the last elder statesmen in Canadian politics and his candidacy could finally settle the question of whether there’s any room left for so-called “blue Liberals,” who combine fiscal responsibility with a relatively progressive take on social issues. These are the kind of voters and politicians who feel politically homeless after Poilievre took control of the Conservatives and the Liberals veered to the left to squeeze out the NDP.

It’s an open question how many Canadians actually want the kind of benign centrism that Charest represents, but there’s no doubt that politics has become more polarized.

Charest’s CV is impressive. At 28, he became the youngest cabinet minister in Canadian history in Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government and later went on to lose the party’s leadership race narrowly in 1993 to Kim Campbell.

After the party’s devastating loss in the 1993 election, Charest was appointed leader and dragged the party back from the abyss. In 1998, he detoured into Quebec politics, becoming leader of the Quebec Liberal Party and premier of Quebec for nearly 10 years.

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After his loss in 2012 to the Parti Québécois (and losing his own seat), Charest worked as a consultant until he ran for the federal Conservative leadership in 2022. Charest was handily defeated by Pierre Poilievre on the first ballot, which was widely seen as a sign that the Conservative party no longer had room for more traditional Tories.

It could be the case that the political spectrum has shifted in such a way that a different party would be a better fit for the former Liberal premier, who could pull the now left-leaning Liberals back to the centre of the Canadian mainstream.

At 66 years old, Charest is the oldest contender on this list and that could count against him at a time when Canadians seem primed for change. As Poilievre seems to have struck a winning note with younger voters, the Liberals could choose to double down on their current key demographic: boomers.

Christy Clark, The Centrist

Christy Clark is one of a few Canadian politicians with a stacked resume and no real political home.

Even her former party, the B.C. Liberal party, is no more. It changed its name to B.C. United and is now trying to fend off a potentially existential threat on its right flank from the B.C. Conservatives.

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In federal politics, Clark has existed in the liminal space between the Conservatives and the Liberals which, in partisan politics, means both parties are suspicious of her. In the 2022 Conservative leadership race, Clark flirted with running before choosing to endorse Jean Charest, who went on to lose badly.

Since then, Clark has been pitching moderation to groups such as the Centre Ice Conservatives, who believe that the path to electoral glory is through the middle of Canadian politics. Of course, Poilievre’s smashing success in opinion polls stands as a stern rebuke of the theory.

But Clark may see an opportunity in a Liberal party that has swung to the left of the political spectrum and may look kindly on a leader with centrist bona fides. The B.C. Liberals she led as premier identified as a coalition for voters who cast ballots for both the federal Liberals and the federal Conservatives, striving for a responsible fiscal policy and progressive social policy.

For Canadians who lean Liberal but are opposed to the federal carbon tax, Clark’s political pragmatism could be a middle ground between the current government and Poilievre’s promise to “axe the tax.” During the 2013 B.C. election, Clark promised to freeze the province’s carbon tax rate and subsequently squeezed out a majority victory against a resurgent NDP. Clark’s campaign also featured her advocacy for B.C. LNG projects, which will divide the Liberals’ supporters, and a promise to make B.C. debt-free.

After serving as B.C. premier for six years and losing to John Horgan’s NDP, which formed a coalition with the B.C. Green party in 2017, Clark retired from politics. But, at only 58 years old, it’s still possible that she could return for the right opportunity. She could also give the Liberals something they have never had: a female leader.

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