Liberal MP Chandra Arya is the second candidate to officially announce his bid to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau following his resignation announcement.
Arya, originally from India, announced on X that he intends to become the leader of the Liberal party and, in turn, become the prime minister of Canada.
Arya has been elected in his Nepean, Ont., riding three times since the Liberal government first came into power in 2015. He’s worked in financial investment firms, owned a manufacturing company and was an executive at a high-tech defence technology company for six years before entering politics.
He also sponsored a petition for the government to reassess the foreign agent registry, which would have forced individuals working on behalf of a foreign government to register their activities in Canada.
The registry was supposed to help mitigate foreign influence, but Arya claimed it would be used to harass and intimidate ethnic minorities. Despite Arya’s protests, Bill C-70, the Countering Foreign Interference Act, which established the registry, received Royal Assent on June 20, 2024.
When True North asked MPs if they were involved in foreign interference, Arya did not respond, though only five Liberal MPs responded to deny involvement.
He was also one of two Liberal MPs who were lobbied by Huawei, a now-banned Chinese-owned company that was flagged for spying in Dec. 2019.
This comes with the backdrop of a Conservative leadership election committee chair and Elections Canada warning that Liberals’ lax rules for membership – which allow non-citizens and those without permanent residency to vote – make a future leadership race susceptible to foreign interference.
In his campaign launch announcement, Arya vowed to strive towards getting Canada’s real GDP to $5 trillion in 25 years and said Canada’s immigration system would be one of the priorities if elected.
“For a long time, there was a social contract. As a skilled immigrant, you worked hard to build the economy and make our country prosperous. If you did so, the sky was the limit for your success, and your family led a comfortable life,” Arya said. “Today, that contract is broken. The government has departed from our time-tested, almost perfect immigration system.”
Arya announced that he intends to lead a “small, more efficient government” that will fix disparities between the middle class and the rest of Canadians and make housing more affordable. However, he did not include how he intended to do so in his lengthy campaign launch announcement.
He vowed that if elected prime minister, he would select his cabinet “on merit and not on DEI quotas,” marking a departure from what’s often criticized as the “woke policies” of the Trudeau Liberal government.
However, he also stated multiple times that he would “make Canada a sovereign republic.” Canada still has ties to the monarchy in England and has never been a republic.
“It’s time for Canada to take full control of its destiny. My government will make Canada a sovereign republic,” he said. “This is a turning point for Canada. A smaller government, a sovereign republic, and a $5 trillion economy are within our reach—if we have the courage to act today,” he said.
He also said he would raise the age requirement to access Old Age Security, citing the amount Canada spends on the retirement fund as “unsustainable.”
Arya’s only other officially announced contender is former Liberal MP Frank Baylis. However, CTV is reporting that sources have confirmed that former deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland intends to run.
Though Baylis has yet to release a campaign launch statement, he’s posted on X that he will launch a “solutions-driven campaign” to “unlock Canada’s potential.”
Just two months after Baylis left office as a Liberal MP in 2020, his medical supplies company, Baylis Medical, received a $422,946 federal contract. Conservatives accused him of “cashing in” from his time spent in the Liberal caucus.
In 2021, Conservatives raised the alarm over a potential scandal involving Baylis Medical again, this time, the government awarded the former Liberal MP’s company $237 million.