Speculation swirls over former BC premier Christy Clark's possible bid to replace Justin Trudeau
Political pundits have been speculating in recent months about a potential bid by Christy Clark to run for leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, replacing Justin Trudeau and ultimately becoming Canada’s new Prime Minister.
These rumours were reignited today in a Radio-Canada report, in which the former premier of British Columbia told the public broadcaster that she “would like to be part of the discussion about the future direction of the Liberal Party and the country.”
There are rumblings of growing pressure within the federal Liberal Party for Trudeau to resign before the upcoming federal election. The party’s popularity has plummeted in consecutive public opinion surveys over the past two years, and critics attribute this decline to Trudeau’s unpopularity.
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In response to the report and social media reactions, Clark posted a statement on X early this afternoon in an effort to temper expectations regarding her possible party leadership campaign.
“The Prime Minister has earned the right to make any decision about his leadership on his own — the position of leader is not open. Right now, we all need to be focused on uniting Canadians and working together as Liberals to defeat the divisive Poilievre Conservatives in the next election,” wrote Clark on X today.
“Canadians are deeply concerned about the cost of living, the housing crisis, the need to shore up our health care system, and the urgent need to fight climate change. Pierre Poilievre thinks simplistic slogans and bombastic rhetoric can solve Canada’s problems. He doesn’t have any solutions. No one in our country benefits from, or wants, the polarization he is peddling.”
Clark notes that she is a “proud” federal Liberal voter and registered member of the party, suggesting she is a centrist or moderate federally. However, in more recent years under Trudeau’s leadership, the federal Liberals have shifted to between centre-left and left in the political spectrum, aligning themselves more closely with the federal NDP than previously.
In a speech at an Ontario Liberals event in September 2024, Clark also said, “Canadians and Ontarians are moderate and fair people; they’re not ideologues. They want us to bring people together, not divide us — fairness and compromise are Liberal values.”
Clark was a key figure in the previous provincial government led by the centre-right BC Liberals (now BC United) in the early 2000s, holding key cabinet positions under Gordon Campbell’s premiership.
In 2005, she unsuccessfully sought the municipal Non-Partisan Association party’s nomination to run for the mayor of Vancouver.
Clark returned to provincial politics in 2011 by becoming the premier and taking over Campbell’s Vancouver-Point Grey riding, defeating the BC NDP’s David Eby in a by-election. Although the BC Liberals won a majority government in the 2013 provincial general election, Clark was unable to hold onto her Vancouver-Point Grey MLA seat, losing to Eby. Later, in 2013, she ran in a by-election to fill a seat vacated by a member of her party in the Kelowna West riding for her to secure a position in the legislature.
Her premiership ended in 2017, shortly after the provincial general election. While the BC Liberals won a minority government, the BC NDP under John Horgan and the BC Green Party under Andrew Weaver formed a confidence and supply agreement — similar to the effect of a coalition government — to defeat Christy Clark’s BC Liberals party shortly after the 2017 election, ousting the BC Liberals and forming government.
Kevin Falcon, the leader of BC United and a former longtime colleague of Clark, said he was “shocked” to hear reports of her potential leadership bid for the federal Liberals.
“Candidly, I thought that she had been more conservative. I mean, she’s been a federal Liberal her whole life, so I guess it’s not entirely surprising,” Falcon told Daily Hive Urbanized in an interview in late August 2024, held on the same day the initial rumours began on Clark’s interest in replacing Trudeau and just days before he withdrew from running in the 2024 provincial election.
“I think that certainly a change in economic direction in the federal Liberal party is desperately needed because, again, we cannot afford this reckless tax and spend kind of government that we’ve seen both at the federal level and at the provincial level here. So if she’s going to get them back to economic sanity, I think that would be a positive contribution.”
A new survey by Research Co. conducted this past weekend as an “exit poll” for the 2024 BC provincial election shows 27% of voters in BC would have voted for the Conservative Party of BC if Christy Clark had been their leader instead of John Rustad. This survey had 700 adult respondents in BC who voted in the 2024 provincial election, with the margin of error established at +/- 3.7%, 19 times out of 20.
If Trudeau steps aside to enable a new party leader, it could shake things up for the Conservative Party of Canada’s current highly favourable position based on contesting against the unpopular federal Liberal leader.
Consistent with previous polls over the past two years, a recent Nanos Research survey conducted earlier this month shows Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives enjoy the support of 38% of Canadians, followed by 23% for Trudeau’s Liberals, 21% for Jagmeet Singh’s NDP, and 7% each for the Bloc Quebecois and Green Party of Canada.
This represents continued gains for the Conservatives and a double-digit loss for the Liberals compared to a previous Nanos survey, potentially providing the Conservatives with a landslide win to form a majority government if an election were held this month.
This latest Nanos survey had 1,000 respondents nationwide and an accuracy of +/-3.1% 19 times out of 20.
The federal general election is expected to be held no later than October 20, 2025.