THUNDER BAY — Wondering who Patty Hajdu, MP for Thunder Bay-Superior North, will support in the Liberal leadership race?
Wait a couple of weeks.
“I haven’t decided yet who I’m going to support,” Hajdu, who is also minister of Indigenous services and the minister responsible for FedNor, said Friday.
But she said she’ll have a better idea of who to support on or about Jan. 23, the deadline for candidates to enter the leadership contest.
“There’s a lot of talk about who’s going to run,” said Hajdu. “On Jan. 23 we will know who is in the race, and I will be prepared to make a statement at that time about who I’ll support.”
The third-term parliamentarian, first elected in 2015, said she wants “to wait and see what each candidate is going to propose as the direction for the party.”
Two cabinet ministers, Dominic LeBlanc and Melanie Joly, said this week they will not run for the party leadership, and Hajdu said she isn’t interested.
Potential candidates include Employment Minister Steven MacKinnon, former B.C. premier Christy Clark, former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney ... and Chrystia Freeland, the Toronto MP whose surprise resignation from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet on Dec. 16 sparked a leadership crisis within the party.
Hajdu didn’t rule out voting for Freeland.
A media release from the Liberal Party of Canada on Thursday said the leadership vote will conclude March 9, 15 days before the current prorogation of Parliament will end.
Parliament being prorogued for several weeks “gives me some time to go out into (Thunder Bay-Superior North communities) and meet with people, hear their thoughts,” Hajdu said.
“And as you know, my riding is vast.”
Besides roughly half the city of Thunder Bay, Hajdu’s riding includes Marathon, Nipigon, Greenstone and many First Nations, and spans almost 93,000 square kilometres.
