Liberal leadership candidate Karina Gould said Thursday that her longtime government mishandled the price crisis and failed to effectively respond to Canadians seeking relief amid high inflation. Ta.
While criticizing the government’s approach to the cost of living, Mr Gould also ruled out some of the government’s other key policies, including an increase in capital gains tax and a future increase in carbon tax.
“We have to be honest about the fact that Canadians have lost faith in our party,” Gould told reporters shortly after submitting his final documents to run for leadership at the party’s office in Ottawa. told.
“I don’t think we were answering the questions that they said were most important to them. We didn’t say, ‘Yes, things are really tough right now. This is how we’re going to solve them.’ “It took me a long time to understand that Canadians are struggling to make a living,” she said.
Just five days after launching her campaign, the former cabinet minister has collected enough signatures and funds to clear the first hurdle, evidence that her campaign has momentum, Gould said. Ta.
But Gould faces two strong competitors, former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland and former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney.
Carney has an advantage in the race for support from Liberal MPs, with cabinet heavyweights including Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeault already behind Carney. Support or sympathize with Mr. I plan to endorse him in the next few days.
So far, 36 Liberal MPs have backed Mr. Carney, a political novice, compared to 25 for Mr. Freeland and two for Mr. Gould, according to data compiled by CBC News.
“I can tell you from experience that this country is not broken, but we need experienced leadership,” Carney said in a new campaign video posted on social media. Carney has not spoken to the media since starting his campaign last week.
On Sunday, Chrystia Freeland and Karina Gould officially entered the race to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Freeland’s campaign launch was repeatedly interrupted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators as he sought to position himself as a challenger to Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, Freeland released a policy document Thursday focused on renewing the party.
Freeland took a thin line at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who some party members feel has stayed in office too long, and said future party leaders must be more accountable to MPs and members. He said it must be done.
“We can never go back to the position of being the only ones who decide who our leaders are. And the Liberal grassroots members and caucus are in charge of what we do and how we do it.” “I think we need to have a greater say in how we do it,” she said. He spoke to reporters at Parliament House after the Liberal caucus meeting, promising an automatic leadership review at the party’s biennial convention.
Freeland said these conventions would be permanent and party members would have to meet every two years no matter what. Mr Freeland said party leaders and ministers should sit down with party members and have regular “robust policy discussions”.
On her way to the Liberal caucus in Ottawa on Thursday, Toronto MP Chrystia Freeland said her focus in running to become the next leader is to revive the party’s grassroots and make the process more democratic. He said that he should do so.
To differentiate itself from these two competitors, if elected, Gould would make GST holidays permanent on children’s clothing, diapers, strollers and car seats to help parents struggling to make ends meet in this era of high prices. I swore that I would.
She also promised to do something the current Liberal government has failed to do: exempt Canada’s supply-managed agriculture sectors, such as dairy, from future trade negotiations.
The former government House leader also blamed Liberal Party leaders, saying they had allowed the party to wither away over the past nine years.
He said party leaders were “not giving members the space they need” to consider the direction of the party. He said election strategies that worked in 2015 are now outdated.
Gould said the Liberals were “too focused on coming to power in Ottawa” and “lost touch” with “what’s going on on the ground.”
“We want to be that big red machine,” she said. “I don’t know much about Ottawa.”
This is all part of Trudeau’s effort to project herself as the candidate to open a new chapter in his nine-year tenure, but given that she has been a cabinet minister since 2017, this It can be a difficult sales job.
At a press conference on Thursday morning, Liberal leadership candidate Karina Gould pledged to permanently cut GST on children’s clothing, nappies, pushchairs and car seats if elected leader. The federal government introduced a two-month GST holiday on certain items in December.
Still, Gould did not hesitate to criticize some decisions in which she was involved.
She pledged Thursday to halt further increases in the government’s consumer carbon tax, the Liberal Party’s signature climate policy.
He said Canadians are already struggling to pay their bills and the government shouldn’t spend any more money.
“I’m listening to Canadians who say now is not the time to raise the price on pollution. As prime minister, the first thing I want to do is cancel the increase scheduled for April 1,” she said. said in French. He promised to maintain the carbon tax at a reduced rate.
He sought to distance himself from the government’s response to recent capital gains tax hikes, saying he was in talks with business leaders who took issue with a blanket tax hike that could deter investment at a time when they needed it most.
“I don’t think we got it right,” she said, promising to say more on the issue as the campaign progresses.
Asked why he didn’t do more to dissuade Trudeau and others from enacting policies he doesn’t agree with, Gould said his ministerial credentials oblige him to keep his opinions private in public. He said he fought against some of these measures around the cabinet table.
Freeland, who supported raising capital gains taxes as finance minister, also plans to back away from that policy in the coming days, campaign officials said.
