Liberal leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland says if she wins and becomes prime minister, she will invite rival Mark Carney to serve as her finance minister, a job she dramatically vacated just a few months ago.
“I intend to win on Sunday, and when I win, I will invite Mark to serve as finance minister in my government. I think we’ll make a great team,” Freeland said in a scrum at an automotive parts manufacturer in Vaughan, Ont., Wednesday.
“I think right now, we need a prime minister who has a seat in the House of Commons, who can lead a government that has the political legitimacy to fight this tariff war and someone who has experience as a political decision maker in a crisis,” she said.
Carney is not an elected MP, though he has committed to running in the next election, regardless of the leadership race outcome.
Freeland went on to tout her track record as foreign minister, trade minister, intergovernmental affairs minister, finance minister and deputy prime minister, which she called “the perfect set of experiences that we need in a prime minister right now.”
She then said she sees her taking on the top job, and Carney moving into a top cabinet portfolio, as the “ideal combination” for this moment.
Talk of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau making Carney his finance minister was widely pointed to as a source of tension between Freeland and Trudeau.
That friction, coupled with what Freeland called a divergence on spending, eventually culminated in a relationship breakdown and her shocking cabinet resignation.
In light of her absence, Trudeau appointed longtime cabinet minister Dominic LeBlanc as finance minister.
LeBlanc told reporters at the time that he expected to keep that post until the next election, and in the meantime has been navigating the financial fallout from the Canada-U.S. trade war while preparing a potential 2025 federal budget.
CTV News asked Carney for comment on whether he’d accept Freeland’s offer or would be willing to offer Freeland a similar position.
In a statement, his campaign pointed to comments the leadership hopeful made in a recent interview with Radio-Canada.
“If I were prime minister, there could be a number of people who could be in that position. Right now, Mr. LeBlanc is there,” Carney said.
Gould invited rivals to join team, too
Last week, fellow leadership hopeful and former cabinet minister Karina Gould extended a similar olive branch to her competition.
She told reporters on Parliament Hill that she’d find a place on her team for Freeland, Carney and former MP Frank Baylis.
“We need Mark Carney when it comes to the economy, we need Chrystia Freeland when it comes to foreign affairs and we need Frank Baylis when it comes to health,” Gould said.
“The Liberal party is best when we are a big tent, when we do social policy well and we do fiscal responsibility,” she said.
“And so for me, making sure that the Liberal Party of Canada is home to that diversity of opinion in the Liberals is something that is going to be extremely important to me as prime minister.”
Liberal members will decide who their next leader and prime minister-designate will be on Sunday.
