Mark Carney’s leadership campaign said he raised a whopping $4.5 million in a short two-month competition for the Liberals to replace retired Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
All visible signs point to a key lead for the former governor of the Bank of Canada, with liberal ministers and a massive cage of the Caucus supporting him, and he leads in polls and fundraising.
His spokesman Emily Williams said the campaign raised funds from more than 20,000 Canadians and called it the “fastest” fundraising leadership campaign in Canadian history. The other candidates in the race did not hurt the seven people.
Liberals selected their next leader on Sunday, and the campaign is making a final vote-on push to bring together grassroots support from across the country and invigorate volunteers.
Carney, former finance minister Christyre Freeland, former House leader Karina Gould and former MP Frank Bayliss are all running to lead their party into the next election.
An internal memo from Freeland campaign manager Tom Allison, obtained by the Canadian press, said their campaigns were not taken for granted at the “vital” moments of the race.
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“We feel a lot of energy from the liberals for fantastical and battle-tested candidates. This was a difficult sprint for us. We started in January, but some of our competitors have been organising for over two and a half years,” Alison said.
Rah-Rah Note said the campaign targets riding that the Liberals have not traditionally held as part of a strategy to maximize voting efficiency in Freeland’s final push.
He also said Freeland has raised more than $750,000. It came from over 3,000 donors.
Canadian election data, released Friday, places Freeland, Gould and Baylis at ballparks with $360,000 in funding, but the campaign says the published figures don’t give them accurate photos of their hauls as the numbers dated about a week and do not reflect the money raised with a sudden $350,000 admission fee.
Gould’s campaign said it raised about $450,000 from the admission fee without counting funds.
She spent the week holding a series of virtual city halls in various parts of the country.
“Kareena has worked really hard this week because she is directly and effectively involved with voters across the country,” said Emily Jackson, a campaign spokesman who added that Gould works by phone every day.
Baylis supporters say they are introducing candidates whenever possible on the final day of the short race. He was in Surrey, BC, and last week met with the Sikh community.
“The fact that the campaign was so short made it difficult as the more time passed, the more people discovered Frank, reach out to us and show their support.”
The campaign has focused on a complex, voter identity verification process that has irritated many party members.
Various campaigns benefit from volunteers to help voters through processes using the Canada Post Identity+ app, and may require multiple attempts to register.
“We still have some supporters who say things like it’s difficult to vote and that they haven’t been verified,” McIntyre said.
Liberal Party spokesman Parker Lund said as of the end of Friday, 157,000 members had confirmed their identities and 134,000 voted.
The vote closes on Sunday at 3pm, with party members choosing Trudeau’s successor, the winner scheduled to be announced in the evening. The person could be sworn as prime minister within a few days.
