The Current - Why sparks didn’t fly at Liberal leadership debates

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

The four Liberals hoping to replace Justin Trudeau as party leader and prime minister faced off in English and French debates this week. Our politics panel unpacks just how polite the debates stayed between Chrystia Freeland, Mark Carney, Karina Gould, and Frank Baylis — and why whoever wins shouldn’t expect the same from Conservative Leader Pierre Poillievre. 

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But it's time to imagine what we can do with more. Join Scarborough Health Network and together, we can turn grit into greatness. Donate at lovescarborough.ca. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, it's Matt here. Thanks for listening to The Current, wherever you're getting this podcast.

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of these threats from President Trump. Look, I'm not gonna talk down Canada. I am only ever going to be a champion for this country. We need to be really careful not to repeat conservative talking points. Canada most definitely is not broken. There was some disagreement, a bit of mild sparking here and there, but last night's English language debate between liberal leadership candidates was a largely polite affair. Mark Carney, Kristi Freeland, Karina Gould and Frank Baylis squared off against each

other but also against US President Donald Trump and Conservative leader Pierre Poilieff. It was the last face-off before Liberals choose their leader on the 9th of March and it came after Monday night's French language debate. So to talk through these debates and the state of the leadership race we are joined by our national affairs panel. Stephanie Levitz is a senior Ottawa reporter at the Globe and Mail. Ryan Tomalte is with the Toronto Stars Ottawa Bureau. They're both in Ottawa. And Laurence Martel is the parliamentary correspondent for Régio Canada. She is in our Montreal studio. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Stephanie, ostensibly these were for the Liberal Party, but the stakes are much higher

than that. And many, many people beyond the Liberal Party watch these debates. Can you just walk through what the various candidates had to do over the course of these two nights? Sure. I mean, it's basically they're running a campaign on two tracks as you allude to Matt, right? They have to convince Liberal Party members first and foremost to pick them for the next Liberal Party leader and then de facto Prime Minister. But more broadly, they have to convince Canadians that they deserve to be at the helm of a re-elected Liberal government come the next election, which could be in a matter of weeks. And so they're speaking both to internal audiences, which you heard someone like Karina Gould do a bunch of times about being a party of the grassroots, so on.

And then they're speaking writ large to Canadians and going after their, their chief domestic rival, Pierre Polyev, which you heard all of them do at various points during the debate. So spend a little bit of time if you would just, I mean, with, with the various candidates, start with Mark Carney. What, I mean, as somebody who people say that he is untested as a politician, um, and, and that politics is about policy, but it's also about performance. How did he do?

Yeah. So, I mean, Mark Carney's biggest challenge is, if you've been following politics, political discourse for a while, you know who Mark Carney is. A lot of Canadians don't, right? And if they're tuning in to be like, what do I make of this guy as prime minister, knowing that he's the front runner, perhaps. He can't screw up.

He has to sell a vision for the country. He has to come across as somebody, in that old sort of aphorism, like, would you like to have a beer with this person kind of thing, right? Can people connect with him on a political level? Christa Freeland, what about her? I'm not sure that that came through in either debate. Christa Freeland had to distance herself from her

entire record in the liberal government, 10 years, a deficit under her watch, problematic spending under her watch. She had to distance herself from all of that. I'm not sure she did. government, 10 years, a deficit under her watch, problematic spending under her watch. She had to distance herself from all of that. I'm not sure she did. Karina Gould, what role does she play in this campaign? Definitely going after a different segment of the vote, positioning herself differently. So she had to distinguish. And Frank Beilis was sort of a mix of all four, right? No one really knows who he is. What's he doing here? What

is his vision of the country? He could have played more of a spoiler role, a little more of a challenge function. He didn't. And he's just saying, hey, I've got some ideas. I'd like people to hear them. Ryan, what did you learn and what did we learn, do you think, picking up on what Steph has said from these four candidates? Yeah, I think we got a decent sense of their vision for the country. I think we got a decent sense of where they disagree. We saw, especially in the English debate, Greene-Gould starting to, you know, make a

name for herself, I guess, put the elbows up just a tiny little bit. They are, after all, good liberals, all of them, and draw some contrast there. You know, I think there isn't that much difference between these candidates. They do see the world the same way. I'm not sure that you're going to get a drastically different response from Mark Carney or Christoph Riehland. They're both Harvard and Oxford educated Rhodes scholars from Alberta. You don't get a lot more similarities than that.

But I think what we were seeing here is the beginning of sort of a shape of the party. So Christoph Rieland and Mark Carney want to take it more towards the center, move away from some of the Trudeau legacy. I think Karina Gould was the defender of that legacy last night. She's the only candidate that's talking about keeping the carbon tax, even if she is talking about freezing any further increases. And then, Frank Baylis is going to remain a mystery, I think. He is not someone well-known in political circles. He has been out of politics since 2019. I don't think a lot of people are expecting him to win this race.

All right. Laurence, winning in Quebec is critical for the liberals. There were two debates, one in English and one in French. What struck you about these debates, particularly the French language debate, which perhaps many people in English Canada did not see? Yeah, I felt that Mark Carney, I think we learned that Mark Carney still need to work on his French. I think all the candidates were better in English than in French.

It's normal, it's their mother tongue. But I felt that Mark Carney really struggled in the French debate. And I know his team, especially Quebec members of his team, were not really satisfied with his French performance. You know, he spent the last three days before the French debate in a room in Montreal just speaking French to train for that debate. And in the end, he was hesitant, you know, searching for his words at times we were having trouble understanding clearly his ideas.

So people were saying that in some ways it seemed like he was translating on the fly, not thinking in French, I mean, but translating as the questions were coming to him. Exactly. And some of his best lines seem really rehearsed. So I think he had trouble being spontaneous in French. Now obviously people understand that this is not his mother tongue and Quebecers know that he's going to make mistakes in French and that's all good. But he's also running to become the next liberal leader and also the next prime minister of Canada.

So he needs to be able to be understood in both official languages. And I think at times, for Mark Carney, that was challenging. Now, for the other three, they were much better in English, obviously. I mean, you know, Carina Gould, Christian Freeland, they do press conferences in French all the time in Ottawa. I asked them questions in French. When the House of Commons is in session, when the Parliament is not prorogue, you know, they stand up in the House of Commons and they're asked on the spot by conservatives, by the

Bloc Québécois, by the NDP questions in French, and they have to answer that. So their French has really improved in the last few years. And I think for Mr. Carney, it's a challenge. He doesn't have a lot of time to practice. So I think that was my main language takeaway Well, that's the key thing I mean if he becomes leader he's going to be up against people who perhaps aren't going to give him a helping hand on the debate stage he's going to be up in a federal debate against

If Francois Blanchette and Pierre Pauli of who might fillet him in French. What is the concern there? I mean, is there a belief that, because the polling would suggest that perhaps Quebecers are having another look at the Liberal Party, that people will give him, that will, they'll give him a pass because he's trying, or is it going to be more of a severe test than that? Well, I think it's going to be hard for him if he wins the leadership, he will probably struggle in a French debate against Yves-François Blanchette and Pierre Poilieff, because as you say, they won't be as nice to him. There was a moment during the French debate where Mark Carney said, you know, we agree

with Hamas. And what he meant to say was, we agree on our positions on Hamas, but that's very different. And Christia Freeland kind of helped him there. She was like, no, I think what you meant to say was, we're all against Hamas. So she was nice to him in that way. And she said during the debate, we're all friends here. But if he debates against Pierre Pauillet, for instance, he might not have said that in a debate like this.

So that might be a challenge for him. That being said, I do believe that right now Quebecers are not that different from Canadians. They're really scared of Donald Trump. And it's actually funny, I'm seeing amongst my friends, you know, people being suddenly quite patriotic. You know, I have some friends who are quite nationalists and sovereignists, and suddenly they're saying, you know, we need to stand up for Canada. We need to defend our country. So the question for, I think, a lot of Quebec voters right now becomes who is better equipped

to face Donald Trump? And I think that might help Mr. – you know, the future liberal leader, and that might help someone like Mr. Carney. Stephanie, let's talk a bit more about that. Donald Trump is dominating so much of Canadian politics and just soaking up so much of discussion beyond politics as well. It seems like have a listen to Christy Freeland and how

she positioned herself against Donald Trump in her opening remarks. Trump is posing the gravest challenge our country has faced since the second world war. He's threatening us with economic warfare. That's not new. Last time he threatened to rip up NAFTA and he imposed tariffs on our steel and aluminum. I fought back and I won. This time Trump's threats are even worse.

He wants to make us the 51st state. Trump is unleashed and empowered. As your prime minister, I will be too. Steph, what case did the candidates make that they are the best ones to take on Donald Trump? Yeah, so we can start with Krista Phelan, right? As she alludes to in that clip you played, that drawing on her experience with the last Trump administration. She argues

that that sort of gives her the bonafides now to be able to take him on. It's an argument that Mark Carney has tried to undercut by noting two things. One, even as Ms. Freeland herself notes, this is not the same Trump. This is not the same Trump administration. Dealing with them like he was dealt with in his first term is not the path forward here. And Mr. Carney, for his part, he's playing on his role as an economic manager and really focusing, it seems to me, less on how he would put himself up against Mr. Trump, but how he would lead Canada as a result of whatever Mr. Trump is going to do.

Mr. Bayless takes a similar approach in that respect. He's used some pretty strong language talking about Donald Trump as a bully. Um, he is heavily criticized the way the Trudeau government has dealt with it so far saying that, you know, we've been giving things away and it needs to be much more of a negotiation. And then you get to Ms. Gould, and this is one area where it's interesting because she addresses the threat that Donald Trump poses, but doesn't seem

to be addressing it with the same almost severity and energy as the other two. As she talks about needing a Team Canada charm offensive and an ad campaign in the US and standing up to Trump, but she's really, it doesn't seem to be sort of the grand motivator of her campaign like it is for sure for Ms. Freeland and Mr. Carney. Ryan, how much of this is going to be a deciding factor in terms of who liberals pick as their next leader? Yeah, I think liberals, I mean,

liberals want someone who can be pure poly of first and foremost. Is that, ultimately that's what they're trying to figure out because there are a number of different things at play, right? Yeah, there absolutely are, but you know, who can be pure polio first and foremost. Ultimately, that's what they're trying to figure out because there are a number of different things at play, right? Yeah, there absolutely are, but ultimately they wanna win this next election

because the next election isn't far away. It's not like the party has time to rebuild. The next election is probably starting next month. So they are looking for someone who can be pure polio and they are, I think most camps that I talked to are banking on the idea that the next election will be fought on this issue. Who is best to respond to Donald Trump? So I know the Friedland campaign is definitely trying to position her as the person best

equipped to fight Donald Trump. It's sort of a one plus one equals seven sort of argument here. If you want the person who is best suited to Donald Trump, pick this candidate and that candidate will be Pierre Poliev. It'll be interesting to see, Mark Carney can't make that case that he's fought and negotiated with Donald Trump, neither can Karina Gould or Frank Baylis. But if you look at most public opinion polling, people, Canadians, think Mark Carney is best suited to take on Donald Trump, possibly because of his business experience.

But they're all trying to position themselves as the right person. Mark Carney keeps talking about his experience in the 2008 financial crisis, leading Canada then and leading the UK's central bank through Brexit. So he does have experience dealing with economic crisis, which Donald Trump certainly is. In Scarborough, there's this fire behind our eyes. A passion in our bellies. It's in the hearts of our neighbors. The eyes of our nurses.

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The other thing that they are trying to figure out how to position themselves in is how different they are from Justin Trudeau, making the case that they are not Justin Trudeau, that they are not going to follow Justin Trudeau's path, that they represent change in some ways. Have a listen to Mark Carney's criticism of the current government. I want to be clear, and Canadians feel this, I want to be clear about the quote strength of our economy. Our economy over the last five years has been driven by a big increase in the labor force, which was largely because of a surge in immigration that is now trying to be controlled and by

government spending that grew over 9% year after year after year, twice the rate of growth of our economy. Okay, so our economy was weak before we got to the point of these threats from President Trump. That's why we need big changes. That's the reason I'm here. Ryan, who's making the strongest case as to why they are not Justin Trudeau? You know, I thought it was really interesting last night that Paul Martin and Jean-Claude Chen came up in the debate before Justin Trudeau did. All of the candidates were eager not to really mention him.

Like he's the ghost of prime minister's past, even though he's sitting in Rideau Cottage right now. You know, I think it was hard for Christian Freeland and Karina Gould, two people who have served in his cabinet to try to pretend like they don't know him. But certainly they've tried at times, and Christoph Freeland, of course, started this whole leadership race

by taking a big distance away from Justin Trudeau with her resignation, which was, of course, quite scathing back in December. I think Mark Carney is definitely making the case that he wasn't part of the Trudeau government. Of course, he's never been elected office, never been in cabinet. But certainly you're seeing the conservatives definitely want to tie any of these candidates

to Justin Trudeau. You know, our inboxes are flooded daily as Parliament Hill reporters with conservatives pointing out similar stances that Carney and Trudeau have taken, similar backgrounds that they have, just like Justin is their new slogan. So certainly I think there are lots of people trying to run away from Justin Trudeau's legacy. Karina Gould might be the only exception to that

because she is talking about some of the good things they've done. Steph, what kind of line are the candidates walking here? Because presumably you don't want to hammer the government such that you pass that hammer to the opposition, but at the same time, they need to distinguish and difference themselves and distance themselves as well from a very unpopular incumbent prime minister. Yeah, you know, that clip of Mark Carney, the weak economy, you could almost hear the conservatives getting out the scissors to cut it for a campaign act, right?

Because they will say, they will point out that Mr. Carney was, Justin Trudeau's economic advisor for the last five years. So what gives, right? Mr. Carney, were they not taking your advice? It's a fine line also because again, and I don't mean to belabor the point, but they're running for leadership of the Liberal Party. And there's a question there, I think, for all of them. And Karina Gould got at it a bit. What does it mean

to be a Liberal now? There's a vision where I think Karina Gould puts forward where it's a proactive, progressive government with big spending policies that's designed to really help people and raise them up. Mark Carney positions himself as more of a money manager. His economics, leadership and stewardship, it's a different vision of government. I think where they're competing is the question of Justin Trudeau's record as a liberal leader, his vision of government, and whether they agree or not with how government was run. I think you can embrace some of Mr. Trudeau's policy moves over time and say, these were great for the economy, child care

may in fact be one, while saying, but there are other things we need to do. They're not really having that particular debate. Laurence, can you just briefly explain what, from your perspective, what Quebecers seem to be looking for? Because support for the Liberals appears to be surging in Quebec and there are questions as to what that means for the Bloc as well. What are Quebecers looking for, do you think? I think, as I said before, I think they're looking for something very similar than other Canadians. I think they want someone who's going to be able to stand up to Donald Trump. And I think what's interesting right now is we—and I think that's why it's a challenge

for Yves-Francois Blanchette, because I know some voters who actually like him. They voted for him in the past. They might vote for him again in the future. But they might think that this time, in this specific crisis that we're facing, that he might not be the best person to face this issue. And it's interesting, because we're seeing this also provincially. The PQ, the Parti Quebecois, has been ahead in the polls for quite some time now. And now we're seeing their support shrinking a bit.

And I think that's because the issue has shifted. People are saying, well, right now we have other fish to fry. We have a big challenge ahead, and we need somebody who's going to be able to stand up to Donald Trump. And I think, yes, his French might not be perfect, and I think that might be a challenge for him in the future. But at the same time, I think Carney's team is hoping that his resume will really carry through.

And I think I hear from a lot of voters in Quebec, oh, well, he has governed the bank of Canada, he has governed the bank of England. So if he wins as a leader, I think his resume could really help. And I think they want somebody who's going to reassure them. And I think Mark Carney is definitely trying to cast himself as that. Ryan, we just have a minute or so left. This matters in part because the liberals are choosing a leader on the 9th of March,

but as you said, the clock is ticking. What happens do you think in the days after March 9th? An election, very quickly after. I think we're really getting a strong hint from Mark Carney that he's not even going to test parliament, that parliament won't come back on March 24th as it's scheduled. He'll just go to the polls before that. You're getting a hint maybe from Karina Gould and Christian Freeland that maybe they will

try to work out some kind of a deal and certainly the NDP still insists they'll bring this government down but there may be a little less strident about it lately, because this big increase in the polls for the liberals, a lot of it has come at the expense of the NDP. So there may be an opportunity there to delay an election, but I think that's going to be an uphill battle and I fully expect to be on a campaign plane next month. We will talk to you before you get on that plane, hopefully. It's good to speak with you all this morning. Thank you. Thanks. Stephanie Levitz is a senior Ottawa reporter with The Globe and Mail.

Ryan Tomlte is with the Toronto Stars Ottawa Bureau and Loraez Martin is the parliamentary correspondent for Radio Canada. She was in our Montreal studio.