Former B.C. premier Christy Clark will run for Liberal leader: 'We're ready to go'

OTTAWA — Former British Columbia premier Christy Clark is preparing to announce she is running as a candidate in the federal Liberal leadership race, once the rules are finalized.

“Unless the party has some crazy rules, I’m expecting we’re going to be in this and we’re going to win it,” Tyler Banham, a member of Clark’s national campaign to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the next Liberal leader, told National Post in an interview Thursday.

Before making any final decision, Clark is among several leadership hopefuls waiting to see what the party decides in terms of rules for the upcoming race, which include timelines, the cut-off date for membership eligibility and entry fees.

The national board was set to meet on Thursday to discuss the requirements after party officials fielded ideas from Liberal MPs during a marathon caucus meeting the day before.

Clark, a former B.C. premier who joined law firm Bennett Jones as a senior advisor after leaving provincial politics in 2017, has already amassed an organization, which is ready to launch once given the go-ahead.

This week, Clark held a call with 135 national organizers from across the country which hailed from all but two territories and one province, according to a source close to her, and is also receiving offers from people to assist with fundraising.

The source added she has been preparing for months, travelling the country, including heading to Quebec to improve her ability to speak French.

“Depending on how the rules are, she’s going to run,” said Banham, the former president of the party’s Ontario wing. “We’ve ramped up really quickly. When they say, ‘go’, we’re ready to go. We have the capacity to fundraise stronger than anybody. ”

Clark is seen as a centrist Liberal with support in the West, who has the potential to appeal to those who favoured the more centrist policies of former prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. She is also a respected campaigner who brought the B.C. Liberals back from the precipice of potential defeat in the 2013 election and led them to another majority in 2017.

Her skills are likely to come in handy with the federal Liberal party which, after nearly a decade in power under Trudeau, has suffered an exodus of supporters and candidates and is performing dismally in national polls.

Clark’s team said she understands the party needs to be rebuilt.

“Depending on how we do in the next election we’re going to need help rebuilding,” Banham said.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been sharpening his attacks against those who could succeed Trudeau. During a press conference on Thursday, he took shots at former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, former banker Mark Carney but also the former B.C. premier, referring to her as “Carbon Tax Clark,” for having supported B.C.’s provincial carbon tax, which a B.C. Liberal government introduced in 2008.

“She was the ‘carbon tax queen’ before Justin Trudeau even got the idea. In fact, she might even have been the inspiration,” said Poilievre.

Clark will raise the profile of a leadership race that in its early days has had only lesser-known candidates confirm their entry.

Liberal MP Chandra Arya announced Thursday he is willing to throw his hat in the ring, making him the second unofficial contender seeking to lead the party after former Liberal MP and businessman Frank Baylis.

“I’m running to be the next prime minister of Canada to lead a small, more efficient government, to rebuild our nation and secure prosperity for future generations,” said Arya, in a video posted on X.

Arya, the MP for the Ottawa-area riding of Nepean since 2015, is the first leadership hopeful to officially promise to scrap the Liberals’ consumer carbon tax.

Arya’s other promises include immediately recognizing a Palestinian state and severing Canada’s ties with the monarchy by making it a “sovereign republic.”

Just last month, the MP for Nepean signalled his support for Freeland after she resigned as finance minister from Trudeau’s cabinet. Calling her a “credible and stable alternative” to Trudeau, he said she was best placed to deal with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump.

Arya said Thursday that he reflected over the holidays and came to the conclusion that he, not Freeland, would be better suited to lead the party.

Freeland has not yet said if she is going to take a run at the leadership. A source close to her said she wanted to talk to her caucus colleagues this week and “discuss what are the next best steps for both the party and the country.”

Arya said he did not talk to any of his colleagues before making the announcement nor will he be asking any of them to endorse him. “I’m directly going to the people,” he said.

Baylis was MP for Pierrefonds—Dollard in the Montreal area, considered one of the safest ridings in the country, from 2015 to 2019, before he decided not to run again. He is the executive chairman of Baylis Medical Tech, a company he sold to an American firm in 2022 for close to US$2 billion.

A source close to Baylis said he has a growing team of supporters in Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Nova Scotia, containing a mix of longtime Liberals and young people..

Many Liberal caucus members were hoping that Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc would run, but he said Wednesday that he would not.

Fran?ois-Philippe Champagne, Mélanie Joly, Jonathan Wilkinson, Steven MacKinnon and Karina Gould are among members of cabinet said to be mulling over a decision whether to run. Former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney is also expected to announce his decision whether to run shortly.

National Post
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