The federal Liberals will announce a new leader on March 9, the party announced late Thursday, giving potential candidates just two weeks to decide to run and potential voters less than three weeks to join the party in order to vote.
The National Board of Directors met Thursday night to decide the initial rules for the race to succeed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who announced Monday he will resign as soon as a new leader is chosen.
Contenders have until Jan. 23 to declare their candidacy and will have to pay a $350,000 entry fee to participate in the race.
The Liberals did not say Thursday how people will vote, but did tighten the rules around who will be eligible to cast a ballot in the race after concerns were raised that anyone with a Canadian address over the age of 14 could potentially vote.
To take part in this selection process, you must be registered as a Liberal member by Jan. 27, be at least 14 years old, and be a Canadian citizen, permanent resident or have status under the Indian Act.
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Ontario Liberal MP Chandra Arya and former Montreal MP Frank Baylis are the only two candidates to officially declare they are in the race.
Baylis announced within hours of Trudeau's announcement Jan. 6 and Arya jumped in on Thursday morning.
Former B.C. premier Christy Clark and former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney are both considering joining the race. Several cabinet ministers are also mulling it over, including Karina Gould, Steven MacKinnon, Jonathan Wilkinson, François-Philippe Champagne and Mélanie Joly.
Former finance minister Chrystia Freeland is also considering entering the race. After months of mounting pressure to step down with cratering party poll numbers, Trudeau's decision to step down followed Freeland's bombshell resignation from cabinet on Dec. 16
Freeland left cabinet just hours before she was scheduled to deliver the fall economic statement and three days after Trudeau had told her she would be replaced in the finance portfolio by Carney.
Her exit lit a fire under caucus members who had already been pushing for Trudeau to quit. They saw his sagging popularity as the main reason the party has been trailing far behind the Conservatives in the polls.
By the end of December a majority of his caucus said they wanted him to go.
Carney did not ultimately move into the finance job; instead, Dominic LeBlanc was sworn in as finance minister late in the day on Dec. 16.
LeBlanc said Wednesday he won't be a candidate for the leadership because he wants to focus his attention on fighting tariffs on Canadian imports to the U.S. that are expected when Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
The Liberals have little time to mount the leadership contest, with Parliament prorogued until March 24 and all opposition parties currently planning to vote the government down at their first opportunity.
The new leader will potentially have just a little more than two weeks in office before the country is plunged into a spring election.
On Thursday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre held a news conference in Ottawa and worked to cast all leadership candidates as clones of the outgoing prime minister, saying they've supported hallmark Liberal policies like carbon pricing.
"In the next election, I will be running against Justin Trudeau, whether his name is Justin Trudeau or his name is Chrystia Freeland or 'carbon tax Carney' or 'carbon tax Clark,'" Poilievre said.
He is pushing for carbon pricing to be the ballot box question and what potential candidates have to say about carbon pricing will be a key question in this contest.
Arya, who posted on social media Thursday morning he wants to campaign on running a "small, more efficient government" told The Canadian Press in an interview that the party should ditch carbon pricing.
He also wants Canada to abandon the monarchy.
"This is an old concept that we have to swear allegiance to a king somewhere out there." he said.
