- Key events to watch
- Who is Mark Carney?
- What is Carney up against?
Table of contents
Latest updates
- Mark Carney wrapped up his first tour as Prime Minister in Iqaluit on Tuesday, where he announced a partnership with Australia to create an early-warning radar system over Canadian airspace. Officials on the trip said NORAD approves of the plan and it does not denote a shift away from U.S.-Canadian defence partnerships.
- Defence, trade and U.S. relations were also top of mind in Mr. Carney’s meetings in Europe on Monday. He spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer days after his swearing-in at Rideau Hall.
The Carney calendar
The transfer of power
Completed on March 14
Back in January, Mr. Trudeau promised to step down as Prime Minister only after his party had chosen a leader, which they did this past weekend. He offered his resignation to Governor-General Mary Simon on Friday, who invited Mark Carney and his cabinet to Rideau Hall to take their oaths.
Mr. Carney has kept many ministers in the posts Mr. Trudeau gave them. That includes David McGuinty in Public Safety and Mélanie Joly, who missed Friday’s ceremony to attend the G7 foreign minister’s summit. François-Philippe Champagne moves to Finance and Dominic Leblanc to International Trade. Anita Anand goes from Transport and Internal Trade – now Chrystia Freeland’s role – to Innovation, Science and Industry.
Snap, you’re voting
Still to come this week
Ms. Simon, at Mr. Trudeau’s request, prorogued Parliament until March 24, suspending all House business that could bring the minority government down while the leadership race was in progress. But Mr. Carney has the option to call a snap election before that. He’s likely to do that this week, before prorogation ends, according to three sources in the Carney camp whom The Globe is not identifying so they can speak freely about internal party talks.
The spring election
Still to come by late April or early May
April 28 or May 5 are election dates under consideration, the three sources said. That gives parties just more than a month on the campaign trail, a fairly standard length for federal elections.
Who is Mark Carney?
Life and career
Born in Fort Smith, NWT, and raised in Edmonton, the 59-year-old Mr. Carney is a Harvard- and Oxford-educated economist who has led two countries’ central banks: Canada’s from 2008 to 2013, and Britain’s from 2013 to 2020. His wife, Diana Fox Carney, is a British economist whom he met at Oxford. They have four daughters named Sophia, Amelia, Tess and Cleo. Mr. Carney is a triple citizen – Canadian, Irish and British – though he’s taken steps to renounce those last two.
Role in the Trudeau government
While he’s never run for Parliament as a Liberal before, he’s an old acquaintance of many people who have, including key ministers in the Trudeau government. Ms. Freeland is married to one of of Mr. Carney’s Oxford friends, and Mr. Carney is the godfather of their youngest child. Catherine McKenna, the former environment minister, and Anita Anand, the current Transport Minister, also count Mr. Carney among their friends.
In 2020, Mr. Carney’s work as a central banker – which involved weathering the 2008 financial crisis in Canada and the 2016 Brexit shock in Britain – made him a sought-after expert on another emergency, the pandemic. Mr. Trudeau made him an informal adviser on COVID-19 economic strategy. At one point last year, Mr. Trudeau planned to install Mr. Carney as finance minister in Ms. Freeland’s place, and her resignation helped trigger the leadership race that brought Mr. Carney the top job.
Chrystia Freeland, the former deputy prime minister, has known Mr. Carney for years, as has her husband, Graham Bowley, who studied with him at Oxford.Amber Bracken/Reuters
Policy pledges
During the leadership race, Mr. Carney says he’d retaliate dollar for dollar against U.S. tariffs, though as Prime Minister he’s softened that somewhat: “There is a limit, given the relative size of our economy, the extent to which we should match U.S. tariffs,” he said on his first foreign trip to Europe.
He also pledged to phase out carbon pricing at the consumer and business level. One of his cabinet’s first acts on March 14 was to lower the price to zero: Repealing or amending the carbon-pricing law itself would require Parliament to come back.
Net worth and personal finances
Mr. Carney has divested all assets, other than cash and real estate, into a blind trust, a spokesperson told The Globe – but it’s not clear how wealthy the former corporate executive was before entering politics. The largest source of his income is likely Brookfield Asset Management, whose board he chaired. He holds deferred share units in the company worth more than US$3-million, and stock options that, based on recent trading prices, could potentially yield more than US$7.7-million.
This Toronto father and son, vacationing in Washington in early March, showed their support for Canada's side in the tariff dispute with a flag and a hockey stick. Canadian delegates were in the capital that day for talks on how to de-escalate the trade war.Ben Curtis/The Associated Press
What is Mark Carney up against?
On the Washington front
In Mr. Carney’s first days, as in Mr. Trudeau’s last ones, tariff warfare is the most pressing issue. Steel and aluminum are being taxed at 25 per cent as of March 12, and tariffs on dairy and lumber could soon be announced by President Donald Trump. Mr. Carney conferred about trade matters with his counterparts in France and Britain on March 17, but after those meetings, Mr. Carney denied that there would be a co-ordinated plan of counterattack.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre spent Sunday in London, Ont., rallying supporters.Geoff Robins/The Canadian Press
On the Ottawa front
Expect the coming election to be a hotly contested one, with trade issues front and centre for all parties. Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives once enjoyed a double-digit lead over the Trudeau Liberals, but the leadership change and trade feud have brought their parties closer together in public opinion polls. Currently, the Liberals have 153 House seats, and the Tories 120; to get to majority, either party needs to reach 170 or more.
With reports from Stephanie Levitz, Robert Fife, Bill Curry, Ian Bailey, Emily Haws and The Canadian Press
Whither the Liberals? More from The Globe and Mail
Commentary on Carney
Campbell Clark: Liberals bet on a technocrat to weather turbulence
Jake Fuss: Carney’s fiscal plan may simply be some creative accounting
On the end of the Trudeau era
Justin Trudeau’s rise and fall, as seen on The Globe’s front pages
Adam Scotti: I spent 15 years as Justin Trudeau’s official photographer. Here’s what I saw