Who can replace Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party?

Justin Trudeau’s nine years as Canadian prime minister is coming to an end after he announced he will step down as leader of the ruling Liberal Party.

It means his party must now find a new leader to contest a general election where opinion polls suggest they are headed for defeat.

Here are some of the people who are expected to take part in Venstre’s leadership race.

The Toronto MP became one of the best-known members of Trudeau’s team and is seen as one of the top candidates to replace the outgoing leader.

While she had long been seen as a trusted senior official in his inner circle, a rift with the prime minister’s office led to her recent resignation in December.

Her criticism of Trudeau in her public resignation letter put pressure on him and made his departure seem inevitable.

Born to a Ukrainian mother in the western province of Alberta, the 56-year-old was a journalist before entering politics.

She entered the House of Commons in 2013 and two years later joined Trudeau’s cabinet with a trade mandate after he swept the party to power.

As foreign minister, she helped Canada renegotiate a free trade agreement with the United States and Mexico.

She was later appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance – the first woman to hold the job – and oversaw Canada’s economic response to the Covid pandemic.

She quit last month, criticizing Trudeau as insufficiently strong in his handling of Donald Trump’s threat to levy US tariffs on Canadian goods.

A 2019 Globe and Mail profile said, depending on who you asked, Freeland is either a last, best hope for the liberal world order or an out-of-touch idealist.

Her steadfast support for Ukraine won praise in some quarters, but the Harvard-educated MP has had her share of critics, including Trump, who recently called her “toxic.”

Trudeau himself admitted that he had long tried to recruit Mark Carney to his team, most recently as finance minister.

“He would be an outstanding addition at a time when Canadians need good people to step forward in politics,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a Nato conference in July 2024.

Carney, 59, who has served in recent months as a special adviser to Trudeau, has long been considered a contender for the top job.

The Harvard graduate has never held public office but has a strong financial background, serving at the top of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.

He also brings expertise on environmental issues through his role as the UN’s Special Envoy on Climate Action, and recently called the goal of net zero “the biggest commercial opportunity of our time”.

Carney is a champion of some Liberal policies that have been unpopular in the country’s conservative circles, such as the federal carbon tax policy, the party’s signature climate policy, which critics argue is an economic burden on Canadians.

He has also already criticized Pierre Poilievre, the leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, saying his vision for the country’s future is “without a plan” and “just slogans”.

“I’m the one in the conversation who’s actually been in business, who’s actually in business and making decisions,” he said.

Anand is often touted as one of the more ambitious members of the Liberal caucus.

The 57-year-old lawyer entered the political scene in 2019 when she was elected to represent the riding of Oakville, just outside Toronto.

She is an Oxford-educated academic and has a background in financial market regulation and corporate governance.

She was immediately assigned the ministerial task of public services and procurement, putting her at the head of a mission to secure vaccines and personal protective equipment during the Covid pandemic.

Anand was then appointed defense minister in 2021, leading Canada’s efforts to provide aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia and overseeing a personnel crisis in the Canadian armed forces mired in sexual misconduct scandals.

When Anand was shuffled out of that department to oversee the Treasury Board, many saw it as a demotion, with critics of Trudeau going so far as to speculate that it was a punishment for her ambitions to one day lead the party.

In December, she was again moved during a cabinet reshuffle to the role of Minister for Transport and Minister for Domestic Trade.

The former businessman and international trade specialist is another Liberal minister said to be eyeing the party’s top job.

But his journey through the ranks to a bigger portfolio was slower than Anand’s.

Champagne, 54, joined the Commons in 2015 but has since gone through international trade, foreign affairs and most recently the department of innovation, science and industry.

But there are several things working in his favor. Champagne is from Quebec, a province whose vote has often swayed federal Canadian elections.

He has also been dubbed “Canada’s Energizer Bunny” by some experts who have seen his enthusiasm as he traveled the world under his innovation portfolio with a mission to sell everything Canadian made.

And because of his business acumen, political observers see him as a viable option to lure centrist liberals back into the fold.

Like Trudeau, Joly represents a Montreal-area riding.

For foreign leaders, the 45-year-old is a familiar face, having represented Canada on the world stage since 2021.

As the current foreign minister, she has made several trips to Ukraine in a show of Canada’s support. She traveled to Jordan to assist in the evacuation of Canadian citizens in the region when the Israel-Hamas war broke out.

Joly has also been at the heart of some of the government’s biggest foreign policy challenges, including the diplomatic crisis triggered by the alleged assassination of a Sikh separatist leader on Canadian soil by Indian agents.

The Oxford-educated lawyer is a well-connected francophone politician who previously ran for mayor of Montreal.

She was personally tapped by Trudeau to run for a federal job in politics.

“He would periodically call me to say, ‘Mélanie you have to run, we want you to run,'” Joly has said.

Senior advisers have praised her ability to work in a room of either seven or 700, and she has long had ambitions to run for Liberal Party leader, close friends told Canadian magazine Macleans.

LeBlanc, 57, is one of Trudeau’s closest and most trusted allies.

Their friendship runs deep, and LeBlanc even babysat Trudeau and his siblings when they were young.

He has a track record of stepping into portfolios at difficult times, including becoming finance minister hours after Freeland’s bombshell resignation.

LeBlanc also took on the difficult task of accompanying Trudeau to Mar-a-Lago in November to meet with Trump.

The former lawyer has been a parliamentarian for more than two decades, having first been elected in 2000 to represent a riding in the Atlantic province of New Brunswick.

Like Trudeau, LeBlanc was born into a political family. His father served as a minister in the cabinet of Trudeau’s legendary father, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and later as Canada’s Governor General.

LeBlanc has shown previous ambitions to lead the party, running in 2008 but losing to Michael Ignatieff. He did not run again in the next leadership race, which was won by Trudeau.

He is in remission after cancer treatment and is known to be affable and a strong political communicator.

The former premier of British Columbia has expressed interest in throwing his hat into the Liberal leadership ring.

In a statement in October, she said she would “want to be part of the conversation about the future direction of the Liberal Party and the country” if Trudeau steps down.

Clark, 59, served as leader of Canada’s westernmost province from 2011 to 2017, where she built a reputation for being able to balance environmental priorities while developing BC’s energy industry.

She has repeatedly said in interviews over the past few years that Trudeau had become a drag on the federal Liberals.

She has reportedly also taken French lessons, according to the broadcaster Radio-Canada. Proficiency in French is considered a prerequisite for federal politicians in Canada.