This will be Justin Trudeau's last weekend as the Prime Minister of Canada. Photo Courtesy: Canadian Press

By Tommy Osborne

New Prime Minister

New Prime Minister to be elected Sunday

Mar 7, 2025 | 4:37 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – A new Prime Minister will be decided on Sunday, as the Liberal Party leadership race is set to conclude. The two front runners are Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney, with Carney perceived to be the current front runner.

“It’s going to be a new era, at least for a month or two, because it looks like Mark Carney will probably pull the trigger on an election because he won’t have a seat himself, he’s not elected to Parliament. But the Liberals have gotten this unexpected surge in the polls, so it looks like it might be a very good time for the new prime minister, to pull the trigger on an election and and try to save the Liberal Party with Mark Carney expected to come in,” said College of New Caledonia Political Science Instructor Chris Beach.

The Liberals surge in polls is largely thanks to Justin Trudeau’s response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s constant threats of annexation and calling Canada the “51st state,” as well as Canada’s response to the ongoing trade war. Regardless of who ends up winning the Liberal leadership race, Beach believes having a new leader will allow Canada to handle Trump and his threats from a position of greater power.

“I think it’s going to strengthen Canada because we’ve had kind of a lame duck prime minister now for a couple of months, and you even saw the premiers taking the lead on negotiations, Doug Ford in Ontario, David Eby here in British Columbia, because again, Trudeau is on the way out. He just wasn’t in a very strong position when you know that your days are numbered,” Beach said.

The new Liberal leader will enter a situation that has seen a huge surge of Canadian patriotism, and some anti-American sentiment through the “Buy Canadian” movement, and Beach believes the solidarity Canada has shown may have been a surprise to Trump as both the U.S. and Canada engage in a constantly shifting trade war.

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“The White House underestimated the resolve that political leaders and just Canadians have shown in the last month or two, because people are obviously just very angry about this kind of, for the lack of a better phrase, ridiculous behavior coming out of the White House,” Beach said.

“Rather than just giving Donald Trump what he wanted, strengthening the border, establishing a drug czar, that seems to have had no effect whatsoever. So the goalposts seem to be changing all the time. All of that considered, now leaders and Canadians are willing to take a tougher approach maybe, willing to sacrifice more and take a harder line towards Trump because taking a softer line and doing what he wanted didn’t seem to help us at all,” he continued.

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