Prominent banker Mark Carney is launching a bid to lead Canada’s ruling Liberal Party, he said Thursday, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigned his position as head of the party.
Carney, 59, currently serves as the United Nations special envoy for climate action and finance. He is also the chair of Brookfield Asset Management and Bloomberg L.P.’s board of directors.
“I’m here to ask for your support,” Carney said in an announcement from Edmonton, Alberta. “I’m here to earn your trust.’’
Carney joined the Canadian Finance Ministry in 2004 before becoming governor of the Bank of Canada in 2007. He then became governor of the Bank of England in 2013, becoming the first person in the country to head two major central banks. He then left his post in 2020 before taking on his role at the UN.
“My generation of Canadians is lucky,” Carney said Thursday. “We had a good time. A time to prosper. The system that our parents built worked well for us. But those good old times, my friends, are over. Our times are anything but ordinary.”
Trudeau resigned as leader of the Liberal Party on January 6 after facing heavy pressure to step down from fellow Liberal Party members. The opposition parties, Conservatives, the New Democratic Party and Bloc Quebecois also signaled they would move for a non-confidence vote against Trudeau in January when Parliament was slated to return. Trudeau has said he’ll resign as prime minister once his replacement is decided on.
Canadians do not directly elect their prime ministers. The leader of the party that wins the greatest number of seats in the House of Commons — currently the Liberal Party — becomes prime minister.
Trudeau quit as head of his party after his deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, abruptly resigned in December. She cited disagreements over the handling of President-elect Donald Trump’s threats to instate 25 percent tariffs on all Canadian goods exported to the US.
Trudeau has since asked Parliament to be suspended until March. Opposition parties are still expected to hold a confidence vote, which could move the federal elections forward from October.
After a tumultuous end to Trudeau’s leadership, Carney is now seeking to portray himself as an outsider uninvolved with the prime minister’s struggles, The New York Times reports. However, the Conservative Party has already pushed back on this image.
“As a long-time Liberal insider, advisor at least as early as 2020...Carney is the furthest thing possible from an outsider,” the party said in a statement, according to Reuters.
The Times reports Freeland could be one of Carney’s potential challengers, though she declined to replace Trudeau after his government asked her to earlier this month.
A recent poll by Abacus Data indicates Freeland is much more recognizable among Canadians than Carney, with just 24 percent recognizing the banker while 51 percent recognized the former deputy prime minister.
