Liberals set to choose new leader Sunday; Acadia University professor weighs in

Professor Alex Marland chats with CTV’s Todd Battis about the latest developments in Canadian politics.

With the Liberal leadership race coming to a close Sunday, political analysts are speculating who will come out on top, with many pointing in the direction of Mark Carney.

“I think the best metric we have is public opinion polls all point in that direction, you know Liberals love to elect winners, and on top of that, where all the money has gone, and all the money has gone to him as well,” said Acadia University political science professor Alex Marland in an interview with CTV News Atlantic’s Todd Battis.

“This is not really a conversation about who’s going to become the next Liberal leader so much as who’s coming in second.”

Even though the race is set to end Sunday, Marland says it will take time before the winner is named Prime Minister.

“What will happen is there will be a negotiation with Justin Trudeau to find a transition time, so what happens is Trudeau will then need to resign as Prime Minister, we’ll figure it out with the Governor General,” he said.

Marland says there may be a number of factors at play once a new leader is found.

“We don’t know if the new leader will need some time, if they’re going to assemble a cabinet, a lot going on with Parliament having to come back on the 26th of March,” he said.

“If it is Mark Carney, it looks like it will probably be a Coronation of Mark Carney. He doesn’t have a seat in the House of Commons, there’s a lot of dynamics at play.”

Marland says Carney’s calm demeanour is appealing to many people, especially with everything coming out of the United States recently.

“I think the reality is that a lot of us need to realize that he’s in a bit of a political vacuum right now where he’s not Trudeau, and a lot of people are happy about someone who’s not Trudeau, but he also brings a level of calm and experience, but not experience necessarily in politics, and a lot of us are looking for someone who is not like Poilievre who is always sort of niggling and going after people. They’re looking for just calm in the current moment,” he said.

Despite that, Marland says there’s still a lot of time for public perception to wane out of his favour as he begins to take stances on policies.

“The reality is what’s going to happen is in my view you’re going to see more and more things come out about him, he’s going to be taking policy positions, he’s going to be making gaps, he’s already made some, his French isn’t dynamic so what’s going to end up happening is people are going to start saying, ‘I like him but maybe not as much as I thought I did’,” he said.

A familiar situation

Marland says it’s still too early yet to speculate on who would win a federal election as there will be many moving parts in the coming weeks.

“My view in all of this is it’s all still a mirage. This is about a fictional situation about a leader who has not yet taken that position. I will put a lot more stock into things in about two weeks from now when we have a much better sense of what the new Prime Minister will be doing,” he said.

Marland relates this situation to when Justin Trudeau’s father Pierre Trudeau stepped down in 1984, leaving John Turner – who much like Carney had a background in finance – in his place.

“The thing here is Carney, if he becomes leader and Prime Minister, he’s going to inherit a whole bunch of Liberal appointments that Justin Trudeau is currently making, then I assume the Conservatives are going to say, ‘Well listen, what’re you going to do with all these Liberal appointments,’ and here we have somebody else who like Turner, somebody coming in from Bay Street essentially, somebody who doesn’t have a seat in the legislature. It’s really uncanny,” he said.

The Liberals say they will unveil the leadership result at a gathering in Ottawa Sunday with the first round of voting being announced at about 7:30 p.m. AT.

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