By Krish Lukha.

On Sunday 9th March, the ruling Liberal Party overwhelmingly voted for Mark Carney to be the next Prime Minister of Canada. Carney, who was voted for by 86% of Liberals, has been given a strong mandate to lead his resurgent party into the 2nd Trump era, and aims to win the upcoming Canadian Federal Election which will take place this year.

Before the leadership election, only 7% of Canadians had heard of this “rock-star banker.” The Liberals were deeply unpopular in Canada, with Justin Trudeau’s party polling terribly at 20%. The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), led by right-wing populist Pierre Poilievre, had what was to be considered an unshakeable lead of 25 points and was widely expected to form the next majority government. Poilievre’s rhetoric has been compared to that of Donald Trump, and his message was clearly working.

However, all that has changed since Trump re-entered the White House. Canada has become fiercely anti-Trump, and a high proportion of Canadians now believe that Poilievre will cave to the US and is not the right man for the job. Moreover, the deeply unpopular Prime Minister for 9 years, Justin Trudeau, has resigned. This triggered the Liberal leadership election. Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau’s deputy who resigned in December (collapsing the Trudeau government), was considered the frontrunner in the race. All that changed when Mark Carney announced his leadership bid.

Carney was born and raised in Canada, before moving to the US to complete his undergraduate degree at Harvard University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Economics. He then completed both his master’s and doctorate in Economics and Oxford University. He was a banker, who enjoyed a lengthy 13 year career at Goldman Sachs on Wall Street, before joining the Bank of Canada where he eventually was named Governor. He steered his country through the 2007/8 global financial crisis, helping them avoid the worst impacts, and carried on leading until the next point in his career.

In 2013, the Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced that Mark Carney was to be the first non-British Governor of the Bank of England. During his tenure, he was an avid Remain supporter in the EU referendum, and warned that Brexit could cause a recession. When the UK voted to leave, he halved interest rates and restarted quantitive easing, mitigating the impacts. After stepping down, he became the UN Special Envoy for climate action and finance.

Carney’s spectacular CV is one of the many reasons why the Liberals voted him as their leader, and why the Liberal Party’s fortunes are reviving. Canadians believe that he is the right man to negotiate with Trump amid the tariffs war given his expertise, and this gives the incumbent party another chance to rule. However, he faces a war on two fronts. One one side, Poilievre threatens to send the Liberals back into opposition, drawing on frustrations with Trudeau’s government to help him win. On another, the ever-unpredictable President Trump is imposing on and threatening Canada with more tariffs, let alone his threats to annex Canada. Carney has pledged to keep Canadian retaliation tariffs in effect until “the Americans show [Canada] some respect.” In his victory speech, he promised that Canada would never become part of the US and all within 48 hours of his win, Trump both placed more tariffs and then withdrew them.

“The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country,” he told his audience. “If they succeed, they will destroy our way of life.”

He faces many challenges on many fronts, and will have to decide soon whether to dissolve Parliament and call a snap election, after forming a small cabinet comprised of around 20 ministers, or let it reconvene after Trudeau’s prorogation. The next few weeks will be crucial to deciding Canada’s future. If he wins the 2025 election and ultimately fails to reach an agreement with the US, and Canada’s economy plunges further into disarray, the Liberals will almost certainly lose the following election and much like with the Conservative Party in the UK, it will be even harder to restore trust. Carney has barely any political experience, he is not even a sitting MP and his French is laboured, which could hurt his party’s chances competing with the pro-independence Bloc Quebecois in Quebec. Yet he is now Prime Minister.

Despite this, Mark Carney seems to be the best man for the job. He is a globalist technocrat who most certainly has the expertise to steer Canada’s economy, and is very much used to dealing with people from all sides of the political spectrum. With worldwide experience and proven leadership skills, this economist will need to convince Canada that he is a very different person to his predecessor by repudiating Trudeau’s economic policies, such as the infamous Carbon Tax, and by dealing effectively with the threats from the US.