More Carney endorsements

Liberal leadership hopeful Mark Carney has secured the endorsements of four more current and former cabinet ministers.

On Tuesday, Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Minister Gary Anandasangaree and former housing minister Sean Fraser all threw their support behind Carney on social media.

"He's literally one of the most respected voices on the economy worldwide, and he's a fundamentally decent person who cares an awful lot about the country that we all love," Fraser said in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault also endorsed Carney while speaking to reporters at the Liberal cabinet retreat in Montebello, Que.

"I've know Mark for many years. We've worked together on issues of green energy, transition, fighting climate change and the role of the financial sector in fighting climate change," Guilbeault told reporters, adding he's had no discussions with Carney about a potential cabinet post.

"I will continue to work with Mr. Carney to ensure that if we don't go ahead with the consumer carbon price, that we have something else in place that will both help Canadians with affordability, but that will help us to achieve our 2030 targets."

While Carney hasn't said explicitly he'd drop consumer carbon pricing if he wins the leadership, he has hinted at a policy shift by saying that if the carbon price is going to go, it must be replaced “with something that is at least, if not more, effective.”

His stance on industrial carbon pricing is less clear.

"If we don't move ahead with consumer carbon pricing, one obvious answer would be to tighten a system that we already have ... for large polluters in the country," Guilbeault said.

Asked how Carney's stance on carbon pricing compares to that of his leadership rival Chrystia Freeland — the former finance minister has indicated she would abandon consumer carbon pricing because it's unpopular with Canadians — Guilbeault said he wasn't aware of Freeland's plan and couldn't comment on it.

"What I can say is the person, in my view, by far the best placed to articulate a concrete plan on the question on the role of carbon pricing and the role of financial markets in the fight against climate change is Mark Carney," Guilbeault said in French.

Carney secured the support of Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan earlier this week.

The Liberal party also says it has tweaked the financing rules for leadership candidates ahead of Thursday's deadline to submit a $50,000 deposit.

The party says that because banks sometimes issue holds on cheques, it will accept a sworn affidavit stating that a candidate has enough money to cover the deposit, pending the release of any money that's being held up.

Six individuals have declared they intend to run for the Liberal leadership: Carney, Freeland, former government House leader Karina Gould, current Liberal MPs Chandra Arya and Jaime Battiste, and former Liberal MP Frank Baylis.