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For more than a decade it has been one of the most forced questions in Canadian politics: will Mark Carney be the next prime minister? On Sunday, members of the Liberal Party gave their response by choosing the former Central Bank as their leader to replace Justin Trudeau.
In his new role, the former Bance of Canada and the Governor of the Bank of England faces two immediate tasks. Can he save the Liberal Party from the electoral disposal and can he negotiate a trade ceasefire with Donald Trump?
With an October choice, surveys show liberals that narrow the gap with opposition conservatives to 8 percentage points with Carney at the top.
Analysts say part of the reason is the US president. Trump has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada and make it the 51st state, as well as impose destructive tariffs.
For more than a year, Pierre Poilievre of Conservatives has led surveys with at least 20 points on Trudeau. But in the face of Trump’s attacks on Canada, Carney has again attracted the importance of liberals during a period of Canadian renewable patriotism.
“Carney brings a fresh face for the dynamics,” said Dimitry Anastakis, a professor at the University of Toronto management school. “He can represent a form of change within the liberal party that can be quite convincing for the Canadians to overcome their fatigue with a 10-year government.”
To remain prime minister for more than a few months, Carney will have to persuade the wider public, not just the liberal voters, that he is the man for work. He is likely to call a federal choice immediately after he swears this week.
The teacher’s son, Carney, grew up in Edmonton, Alberta and continued to graduate from Harvard and Oxford universities, the latter as a Rodo researcher. In Oxford he met with his wife Diana Fox, a British economist.
John Manley, who was Finance Minister in Jean Chrétien’s liberal government, said that before approved Carney’s appointment as Deputy Governor of Canada in 2003 he asked him why he wanted to be a bureaucrat in Otava after working at Wall Street.
“Carney said he wanted his daughters to raise like Canadians, that he has made enough money. He also said ‘I believe in the public service’, and I think this was the measure of his character,” Manley said.
Carney has returned to the subject in great moments during his career. In what became known as the “Horizon Tragedy” speech in 2015, Carney warned that climate change would lead to financial crises and declining living standards unless companies did more to mitigate its impact.
In his 2022 book Values: Building a better world for allCarney argued that the financial markets needed to maximize the value for the largest number, not some elite.
Carney’s career has not been without controversy. As the first non-British person to be Governor of the Bank of England, he found himself embraced in Brexit’s bitter debate after warning the economic impact of leaving the EU.
Voting departure camps criticized Carney for what they claimed was political interference. Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg called for him to resign from the Central Bank.
Carney’s management style, meanwhile, has been described as a confrontation.
“Shouty? Look, I. . . Try to keep high standards within the institution and my style as a whole is to delegate whenever possible, “Carney the Financial Times told in December 2015. He disagreed with an interview with FT before these elections.
Carney’s financial background has also attracted criticism.
He spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs in New York, London and Tokyo. But it was his time as a chair in Brookfield Asset Management, which oversees $ 1TN on the wealth, which has been a focus on the conservative party attacks.
In a time of renewed patriotism, Brookfield’s decision to move his headquarters from Canada to New York while Carney was chair. On Sunday Pailievre, the conservative leader, posted a link to a FT investigation into Brookfield’s real estate portfolio.
Robert Asselin, a former economic adviser to the Trudeau government, said Carney’s economic expertise is beyond doubt. The question is his political appeal, he said. “Electoral, he still faces a considerable battle uphill.”
