As the federal government works fast to swear in a new prime minister, speculation only continues to grow about when an election might be called.
Mark Carney, who won the Liberal Party of Canada leadership contest on March 9 in a landslide, could become the country's 24th prime minister by the end of the week, and reports indicate that he is likely to call a snap election.
The party's candidate in the Foothills riding, John Bruinsma, is ready for an election call, whenever it may be.
"I think Mark Carney is definitely the person that Canada needs," he said.
Bruinsma was one of over 131,000 Liberals to cast votes in favour of Carney during the party's leadership race. The former central bank governor won with just under 86 per cent of the vote and swept all 343 electoral districts in the country.
In the Foothills riding, 341 Liberals voted in the leadership contest: 277 for Carney, 41 for Chrystia Freeland, 18 for Frank Baylis and five for Karina Gould.
"I think all around Canada, and certainly in Alberta for the Liberals in particular, they felt like I do: with tariffs top of mind," said Bruinsma.
A retired engineering technologist and political newcomer, Bruinsma is focused on how to best represent the over-100,000 residents of the Foothills riding, which stretches from Foothills County to the Canada-U.S. border.
"I think people will recognize that we all have to work together throughout all of Canada and have a united support and not be divisive internally," he said. "The challenge here in Alberta is to convince the voters here that [Carney] is looking out for for Canada, not just for initially the tariffs, but to grow Canada's economy."
While he hasn't been privy to the inner workings of Carney's team in Ottawa, Bruinsma believes an election is likely to happen sooner than later, and he's made it clear that he and his campaign are ready for the writ drop.
"I'm hoping, like all Canadians, that we do get a quick election, and that will provide us some impetus into the negotiations with Donald Trump, or at least the ability to resist some of the the economic coercion that we see from the United States," he said. "We've got to get this done as soon as practical."
Whenever the next election may be, the Liberals still have to nominate a great many candidates across the country. According to the party's website, as of March 12, only 153 candidates have been named, six of whom are in Alberta.
The Liberal Party has enjoyed a significant surge in popularity according to recent opinion polls, with numerous projections showing the gap between the Grits and the Conservative Party, long considered the favourites in the next federal election, closing fast.
Regardless of national polls, Foothills Liberals have a difficult path ahead of them: polls indicate the Conservatives currently have higher than a 99 per cent chance of winning the seat, which has been held by MP John Barlow since 2014.
The Liberal Party last won the riding in 1968, when it was known as Rocky Mountain and only encompassed a portion of the current Foothills riding, during the initial "Trudeaumania" wave under Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
