Karina Gould

Karina Gould ran for the Liberal leadership as a fresh face and a new generation after Trudeau stepped down. She lost to Mark Carney. Here's the thing — she was House Leader and served in multiple cabinet roles in a government that oversaw the worst affordability crisis most Canadians have experienced. You can't pitch yourself as the change people need when you were in the room where the decisions were made. She seems competent and genuinely engaged. But "competent member of a government that failed you" is not the change pitch she seemed to think it was.

Karina Gould entered the Liberal leadership race after Trudeau resigned, positioning herself as a fresh face and generational change. She lost to Mark Carney. She served in multiple cabinet roles — from democratic institutions to House leader. I'll give her credit for being energetic and taking difficult files. But she was a full participant in the Liberal government that presided over the housing crisis, the affordability collapse, and the years when food bank use hit record numbers. Being younger and more optimistic doesn't erase being part of a government that failed on the basics. The party needed more than a new face — it needed a reckoning.

Karina Gould has served in several cabinet roles and made history as the youngest woman appointed to Cabinet in Canada. Her commitment to her party is clear. But her first major assignment — defending the Liberal government's abandonment of electoral reform — set the tone. That was the signature promise of 2015, the one that inspired a generation of voters to trust the Liberals. It was abandoned without a referendum and without a credible explanation. Gould had to stand up and defend that reversal in committee and in public. Later, as House Leader, she managed one of the most dysfunctional parliaments in recent memory. She ran for the Liberal leadership in 2023 and didn't make the final round. Burlington voters have an active local representative — but on the broader measure of democratic accountability, the record falls short.