Seat For Carney’s Asking

Where Should Mark Run?

Mark Carney is not yet an announced candidate for the Liberal Party at the next election. This isn’t an own - Carney has said he’ll run win or lose tomorrow, and I don’t think the loss is coming - but he needs a seat. And there’s a bunch of options.

In most cases, I’m not counting seats with incumbents who want to run again, but based on no inside information and solely reading tea leaves, here’s the ranking from worst idea to best for Carney (with my model’s projected Liberal margin included.)

5. Northwest Territories (LPC +20)

Carney has apparently thought about running here, and it is a safe seat, but if he wants to hold it for a while it’s a non-starter. The travel to and from Ottawa would be hellish, and while there’s no obligation for a MP to live in their province, I suspect Territorians would view a PM with historical ties to the territory who only showed up every so often (monthly, at most probably) worse than Montrealers cared about Trudeau living in Outremont while repping Papineau.

There’s no need to do this, there’s a risk a local candidate could either split our vote, and it’s a seat where the retirement of the Liberal incumbent puts a big error band on any projection. He’d probably win it, but there’s better options.

4. Toronto Centre (LPC +30)

Carney would easily win this. It’s opening up with the retirement of Marci Ien announced today, and it would make a lot of sense. It’s a decent fallback option, but it’s boring, stale, and frankly uncreative. This is a golden seat to drop a rising star, not one to waste on Carney.

I don’t know exactly where Carney lived in Toronto when he worked for Goldman, but he lived in Toronto and has probably spent quite a lot of time in the district. There’s no real way to make a carpetbagging claim stick here, but there’s also no excitement in this. It’s a boring decision that will probably work, but doesn’t get us anything.

3. Edmonton Southeast (CPC +1)

How on earth is a Conservative-leaning seat a better choice than TorCen, you may ask? Simple - it’s bold. Carney is attracted to the idea of running in his home province, and it’s got some merit. It would be a powerful symbol of a different Liberal Party, one less Laurentian and more open to hearing from all sides of the country. Carney would be able to pitch himself as a change agent, a Different Kind Of Liberal, and he would be taking a risk.

He would probably win on this current polling average, just given the leader’s bump that usually comes. That said, there are reasons to be sceptical of the polling in Alberta - in both 2021 and in the last three provincial Alberta elections, the right have been underestimated. It hasn’t yet made the difference, and it’s possible (if not likely) that Carney would get a sizable boost to the point where it doesn’t matter. But right now the Conservative vote is up something like 8 points nationally and only up 4.4 on average in Alberta, per my average. I think that’s low.

The reason I wouldn’t do it, however, is simple - there’s a better way of achieving the goals that Southeast gets you.

2. Spadina-Harbourfront (LPC +10)

This margin is absolutely deflated from 2021, when Kevin Vuong won the seat because of early votes as Election Day broke more NDP. It’s highly unlikely the NDP are in nearly as competitive a position as the model shows and if I used 2019 numbers it’d show a much bigger lead. This would be a good way of “flipping” a seat, showing strength, and getting rid of a shit MP, but you’d lose the Alberta advantages.

Edmonton Centre (LPC +4)

Just toss Randy to the curb and get his significantly redder seat.

Randy Boissonault has done quite a lot to make the Liberal Party look bad, from fraudulently claiming that he has Indigenous heritage to various problems with his approach to economic policy. He was one of the voices advocating for business friendly immigration policies that proved disastrous. He falsely claimed Indigenous heritage to get a government contract. He is a disastrous MP.

You get all of the upsides of Edmonton Southeast in a more winnable seat. You get to present yourself as open to different perspectives and as a fundamentally different character to most Liberals. And, it’s highly likely you’d win the seat.

..

I’d bet on Carney running in Edmonton Southeast, if I had to - it’s winnable with him as the leader, it’s a strong symbolic gesture to the country, and I don’t think he has the willingness to take out Randy (even though he should). Carney’s campaign has made a lot of that western upbringing, and it would be quite the contrast to Poilievre’s messaging around central Canadian elites stifling Alberta if Carney runs in Edmonton. As a vote winner in Edmonton and Calgary it’s probably not worth much. But as a symbol for change it helps across the country.

Justin Trudeau is benefitting from the timing of his exit allowing him one last set piece moment to show him at his best, and he’s been incredible this week. No fair observer could deny that this is one of the best weeks of Trudeau’s tenure. But it’s also very true that Canadians were sick of Trudeau’s shit before January. He is benefiting both from Trump and from the fact he’s gone soon - there’s just much less anger and reaction towards someone on the way out, but the underlying issues of Trudeau’s time remain.

Carney needs to take advantage of his difference and show, not tell, that he’s different. If Carney’s smart he tells Randy to fuck off and runs in Edmonton Centre. It would be a powerful sign that he is not purely the candidate of continuity. I hope he does it, even if I suspect he runs in Southeast.

(With a federal election call likely within the next three weeks, consider a paid subscription. It’s a way to help fortify the Scrimshaw Strategic Booze Reserves, or to just say thanks for the probably dozen columns a week I’ll be posting between now and election day. All my work will stay in front of the paywall, as always.)