OTTAWA – Mark Carney has never held elected office, but for years has been touted as a future leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and if the polling goes as expected, he is the favorite to win his party’s leadership race on Sunday.
Carney, the former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, and Goldman Sachs executive, is expected to win the race to succeed Justin Trudeau as both the 14th Liberal leader and 24th Canadian prime minister by the party’s nearly 400,000 members.
Carney recently criticized President Donald Trump as a “bully” in a statement he released in response to American tariffs being put on the northern neighbor. “Canada will not bow down to a bully. We won’t stand by as illegal U.S. tariffs hurt our workers and their families. As Canadians, we need to face this challenge as one united team.”
Canada’s CBC reported Carney compared Trump to Harry Potter’s Voldemort in reaction to the president’s comments on making Canada the 51st state.
“When you think about what’s at stake in these ridiculous, insulting comments of the president, of what we could be, I view this as the sort of Voldemort of comments… Like I will not even repeat it, but you know what I’m talking about.”
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More than half of the Liberals’ 153-member caucus in the House of Commons has endorsed him for leader over former Cabinet ministers Chrystia Freeland and Karina Gould, as well as past member of Parliament (MP) Frank Baylis – all three of whom served in Trudeau’s government.
On fundraising, Carney has amassed the most campaign contributions with $1.3 million – or more than double what Freeland, a former foreign affairs minister, collected last month.
Polls have also shown that Carney is the frontrunner to become the next Liberal leader. Should he hold that job and automatically become Canadian prime minister as Trudeau’s successor, he would help boost his party’s fortunes at the ballot box.
A survey by the Angus Reid Institute, released on March 5, found that a Carney-led Liberal Party was only three points (37%) behind the official opposition Conservative Party, at 40%.
The results of a Leger poll, released on March 3, reported a slightly wider margin, with the Conservatives at 41% and the Liberals, with Carney as leader, at 33%.
However, the same recent Angus Reid poll also found that 43% of Canadians believe Carney would be best suited, as prime minister, to deal with Trump, compared to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, at 34%.
Even Poilievre has acknowledged that he will face the frontrunner in the Liberal race in the next general election, regularly calling him “Carbon Tax Carney,” with reference to the Canadian government’s consumer tax on carbon emissions that Carney initially supported. During his leadership run, the former central bank governor said he would replace it with an incentive program that rewards Canadians for “making greener choices,” such as purchasing an energy-efficient appliance.
In a Jan. 26 open letter to Carney, Poilievre asked him whether he would be “any different than the man you are trying to replace” and commit to “banning any prior Trudeau minister from serving in your Cabinet” or “pursue the same Trudeau agenda?”
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Norman Spector, who served as chief of staff to former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, views Carney’s political-rookie status as serving him well as prime minister when dealing with the White House.
“He doesn’t start out with any baggage with Trump, and I think that’s very, very important,” said Spector. He suggested that Carney meet with the president as soon as possible to address areas where Canada and the U.S. can closely collaborate, such as on continental security.
Carney cannot appear to be “Justin Trudeau in a different set of clothes or with a different resume,” John Manley, a former Canadian Liberal deputy prime minister and finance minister, told Fox News Digital.
“He’s got to be a candidate for change and be seen as the serious dude who can take on Donald Trump,” while noting that the ballot-box question in Canada has shifted from the unpopularity in Canada of Trudeau to Trump.
No longer a member of Canada’s Liberal Party, Manley said Carney has “promised to move the party back toward the center and make the economy his focus, and those would both be welcome.”
Last Wednesday, Carney said he would remove domestic trade barriers between the 10 provinces and three territories that would expand the Canadian economy by up to $140 billion.
On the same day, Trudeau and the provincial and territorial premiers agreed to do the very same to reduce reliance on trade with the U.S. in response to the Trump administration’s tariffs on Canada.
Manley said the Liberals “have got to stop focusing on identity politics,” which he said is only “important to a small band of people.”
“We can’t keep fighting cultural wars. It badly hurt the Democrats in the U.S.”
He also said Carney needs to quickly call a general election before Parliament is scheduled to resume on March 24.
Should he become Liberal leader on Sunday, Carney would also automatically become the prime minister-designate since the Liberals lead the government under Trudeau.
The formal transition date for Carney to assume office has yet to be determined, but he would be the first Canadian prime minister to have never held elected office and would need to win a seat in the House of Commons. Therefore, the need for a national vote is also personal as it would enable Carney to run in a yet-to-be-determined riding (district) to become a member of Parliament.
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Manley, who ran for the Canadian Liberal leadership in 2003, won by former prime minister Paul Martin, said Carney will need new faces in his Cabinet.
He also sees Carney – a Harvard and Oxford universities graduate with a doctorate in economics – as holding an advantage over Poilievre in the next election.
Born in Canada’s Northwest Territories, 59-year-old Carney was also a longtime Goldman Sachs executive, who additionally served as the United Nations special envoy for climate action and finance.
By contrast, 45-year-old Poilievre has “done nothing but politics for his adult life,” said Manley.
The opposition leader was first elected as a Conservative MP for an Ottawa riding in 2004 when he was 24.
But Manley said, “Poilievre is a very effective communicator,” and Carney has to “prove that he can relate to the ordinary man on the street.”
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“Can he appeal to people who elect governments, many of whom don’t particularly read books – and may not even read newspapers?”
“Being a successful politician today requires a different skill set than it was even in my time,” he said.
