Former Governor of the Bank of Canada Mark Carney has won the race to become leader of Canada’s ruling Liberal Party and will succeed Justin Trudeau as the country’s next prime minister, official results showed on Sunday.
He is now expected to lead his Liberal Party into the next federal elections. The Liberals are currently battling significant difficulties, including inflation concerns, challenging immigration system, housing shortages, unemployment and Health Care problems.
A general election is expected before October, though it could be called much earlier. He will face fierce rivalry from the Conservative Party and its leader, Pierre Poilievre.
“Working for Trudeau, Carney made Canada weaker and poorer; working for himself, Carney made the United States richer and stronger,” Poilievre said.
One of the biggest issues Carney faces as he assumes office, is strained Canada-U.S. relations. In his statement after the result of the election, he said “new threats demand new ideas and a new plan.”
Canada’s new Prime Minister, Carney, added that he will keep pushing back against the U.S. on trade. “My government will keep tariffs on until the Americans show us some respect,” the Prime Minister designate said.
Carney was born in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University in 1988, going on to study at Oxford University, where he earned a master’s degree in 1993 and a doctoral degree in 1995. He held various roles at Goldman Sachsbefore joining the Bank of Canada as a deputy governor in 2003. In 2004, he was named as senior associate deputy minister for the Department of Finance Canada. In 2007, Carney was named Governor of the Bank of Canada, where he was responsible for Canadian monetary policy during the global financial crisis. He led the Canadian central bank until 2013, when he was appointed as the Governor of the Bank of England, where he led the British central bank’s response to Brexit and the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.
After leaving central banking, Carney served as chair and head of impact investing at Brookfield Asset Management and as chair of the board of directors for Bloomberg L.P. He was also appointed the United Nations Special Envoy for climate action and finance. Carney also worked as an adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the COVID-19 pandemicand was made chair of the Liberal Party’seconomic growth taskforce. In early 2025, he announced his intention to seek the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, winning the race in a landslide in March.
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