THUNDER BAY — Both Thunder Bay-area Liberal Members of Parliament say they’re confident in their new leader heading into any future federal election.
Mark Carney handily won the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada on the first ballot with nearly 86 per cent of the vote cast by members of the party. That means he will become Canada’s next Prime Minister until a federal election is called and the current parliament dissolved.
“Liberals spoke in unison and they chose a leader they feel can lead us into the next election, they chose a leader they feel has the qualities to be a successful Prime Minister in a historic time for Canada and I, as an early endorser of Mr. Carney, I'm very happy with the results,” said Thunder Bay-Superior North MP Patty Hajdu in an interview with Dougall Media.
Her cross-town counterpart, Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP Marcus Powlowski agreed, saying that Carney coming in from outside the party can help attract voters who may have soured on Justin Trudeau, or those perceived to be close to him.
“With (Mark) Carney, we've got a new person, a different person — certainly a guy who's eminently qualified to be the leader of the country — and when we're facing all the stuff we're facing with (U.S. President Donald) Trump, I think he's the guy that we want in our corner, certainly,” Powlowski said.
Both Hajdu and Powlowski publicly endorsed Carney’s leadership bid early on.
The fact that Carney won with such a strong mandate from party membership shows he has a wide base of support, Powlowski said, adding that he feels Carney represents "a reasonable middle ground, politically."
“I spoke to a lot of people in my riding — a fair number of people in (the) Kenora riding as well — overwhelmingly they supported Carney,” he said. “As the numbers would indicate, he also had a lot of support from caucus and from cabinet, so I think he's got pretty broad-based support across the party.”
And that mandate from Liberals should mean the party itself is united heading into an election, Hajdu said, as opposed to really tight, hotly-contested leadership campaigns where wounds may be slower to heal and ill feelings can persist, even into a general election and beyond.
“It's a really important feature in politics that in partisan politics, your party is united, your party is confident and your party has the ability to fight together in the next general election, which could happen very quickly,” she said.
Hajdu also added that she feels, despite Carney’s well-documented credentials as an economist, that he understands social policy as well.
“He fully understands that in order for Canada to be prosperous, individual Canadians have to feel that they are included in the economy, that they are safe and that they can reach their full potential,” she said.
