Now that Mark Carney has been named the leader of the Liberal Party, what’s next?
He remains the prime minister designate until officially being sworn in by the governor general.
UPEI Political Science Professor Don Desserud expects he won’t wait for an October election.
“There’s a lot of unanswered questions right now because he has indicated that he would want to go into an election sooner than later,” Desserud says.
“There is a risk if he allows the house to reconvene after prorogation because losing a vote of confidence would make him a prime minister who has been forced an election by such a vote, and that’s not always a good thing.”
He adds that Carney is also still learning on the job, and if an election is called, there would be a short timeline, and he couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.
“If I was his advisor, and I most certainly am not, I think he’d be better off trying to strike a deal with the NDP on a budget then go into a summer recess so that he can spend his summer being the prime minister and doing the things that he said he’s going to do,” Desserud says.
“In effect, he is learning on the job before he goes into a campaign. There are risks in that as well. He basically sets us up, sets himself up as a steady target for the [Conservative Party of Canada].”
Desserud feels the Liberals are hopeful that with the surge in popularity as of late, they’ll be able to ride into a campaign and continue to get stronger.
“But history has told us that that often goes the exact opposite direction. The problem for the Liberals right now is that they’re reading those polling numbers, which are pretty impressive as being indicative of how they will do in a campaign. Things can go south pretty quickly; volatility works both ways, and goes up really fast and goes down really fast,” he suggests.
Mark Carney was chosen as the new federal Liberal leader on Sunday with around 85 per cent of the vote. Chrystia Freeland was second with only 2,700 of the more than 151,000 registered members who cast a ballot.
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