Liberals will know on Sunday who will be in line to be named the next Prime Minister by the members of the party

By Pepper Parr

March 8^th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

The countdown that will determine who will be in line to become the next Prime Minister of Canada is in its final stages.

At 5:00 pm Friday afternoon, any member of the Liberal Party of Canada had to have verified their membership.

The voting procedure has three steps:  First, become a member, second verify that they are members, and third cast their ballot.

The first step produced a membership count of a reported more than 400,000 people who took advantage of the opportunity of becoming members of the Liberal Party of Canada.  There were some rules, but no membership fee.

The last date a person can become a member of the Liberal Party of Canada is January 27, 2025.  To become a member of the Liberal Party of Canad,a a person had to:

• be at least fourteen (14) years of age;
• support the purposes of the party;
• be a Canadian citizen, have status under the Indian Act, or be a permanent resident of Canada.
• not be a member of any other federal political party in Canada; and
• while Registered as a Liberal, not have publicly declared an intention to be a candidate for election to the House of Commons other than as a candidate of the Party.

The Liberal Party reported there were more than 400,000 people who wanted to vote.

The public later learned that of the 400,000, 140,000 had been verified and would be eligible to vote for any of the four candidates.  It was to be a ranked ballot, meaning that each voter ranked who their vote was to go to.

The four are: Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland, Karina Gould, and Frank Baylis.  Those four people debated twice: once in French and once in English.

Mark Carney

Chrystia Freeland

Many people had difficulty getting their membership verified.  It was a complex process.

The Liberal Party said on Friday that 120,000 of the 140,000 verified people had cast their ballot.

Karina Gould

Frank Baylis

Voting comes to an end on Saturday at 3:00 pm Eastern Standard time.

At that point, whatever software the Liberal Party is using takes over and distributes the ballots.

If one candidate does not get 50%+1 of the votes cast, then the person with the lowest number of votes is taken off the list and the second choice votes for that last candidate are distributed.

The count then is between the three candidates left.

If one of the three candidates does not get 50%+1 votes, the last person on the list is taken off the list and their second rank votes and distributed.

Many, if not most, believe that Mark Carney will get 50%+1 on the first count. If he doesn’t, the question is, how many votes did he get, and who was next to him?

Will it be Chrystia Freeland or Karina Gould.  Remember, at this point, Frank Bayliss is no longer on the list.

If Gould comes in behind Carney, and Freeland is third, Canada could be on the verge of being a much different country.

Gould has been underestimated by almost everyone.  People were stunned when the amount of money she raised was greater than that of Freeland.  Carney raised $1.9 million and had the support of most of the Cabinet members.

Gould represents a demographic made up of the people who wonder if they are ever going to be able to own a home; will they ever earn enough to marry and raise families?  Gould was speaking to these people in a way that Carney and Freeland didn’t seem to be able to reach.

The Liberal Party has yet to explain just how the vote results are to be announced on Sunday.  All we know at this point is that it will be sometime after 3:00 pm