Mark Carney takes helm as Canada's new liberal leader
Mark Carney, the former head of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, became the new leader of Canada's Liberal Party on Sunday. He will also succeed the outgoing Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister.
Carney competed against former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, former minister and head of the parliamentary liberal party caucus Karina Gould, and businessman and politician Frank Baylis.
In the voting, Mark Carney received 85.9% of the party members' votes.
Born on March 16, 1965, in Fort Smith, Canada's Northwest Territories, Carney studied economics at Harvard and Oxford, earning his doctorate in 1995. He worked at Goldman Sachs before becoming the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada in 2003. In 2004, he moved to the Canadian Ministry of Finance.
He led the Canadian banking sector through the crisis
In February 2008, Carney became the Governor of the Bank of Canada, the country's central bank. According to experts, his monetary policy helped safely navigate the Canadian banking sector through the global financial crisis of 2007-2010, which was partly sparked by the US mortgage crisis.
In the financial world, he was known for his unexpected decision in March 2008, when he cut the main interest rate by 50 basis points to prepare the Canadian market for the widening financial crisis. The low interest rates increased consumer confidence, and the economy started to recover by 2009. Canada was the first G7 country to record GDP growth and a drop in unemployment.
In November 2012, Carney was appointed Governor of the Bank of England. After 5.5 years of leading Canada's central bank, he took over as the head of the British central bank on July 1, 2013. He oversaw the Bank of England during the UK’s Brexit process and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Carney ended his tenure at the Bank of England in 2020. He was the first non-British head of the Bank of England since its founding in 1694. He received British citizenship in 2018.
After leaving the Bank of England, he worked at Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian-American firm specializing in asset management. In 2023, its assets were valued at $900 billion. He also served as a special envoy on climate and finance for the United Nations.
Advised Trudeau during the pandemic
During the pandemic, Carney informally advised Prime Minister Trudeau and later led a group within the Liberal Party that focused on economic growth.
In January of this year, he decided to run for the leadership of the Liberal Party, resigned from all business roles, and began renunciating his British and Irish citizenships. In an interview with the Irish Times in 2021, he explained that he obtained Irish citizenship in the late 1980s due to his Irish ancestry and connection to his roots.
A few days ago, Carney told the media that he does not judge Canadian politicians who hold citizenship other than Canadian. Still, he believes that if he became Prime Minister of Canada, he should have only Canadian citizenship.
Will take over as Prime Minister after Trudeau's resignation
Carney will not immediately assume the role of Prime Minister; this will occur after Trudeau's official resignation. On Tuesday, Trudeau stated that the power transfer would happen "reasonably quickly." He also noted the complex global situation.
In 2022, Carney released Value(s): Building a Better World for All, arguing that the economy and society should be guided by human values rather than being driven solely by market principles. He refers to Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel, who emphasizes that a nation's citizens show more significant commitment when more is asked of them and that civic values emerge organically from the ground up rather than being imposed from above. Carney also draws on Oscar Wilde’s observation from Lady Windermere’s Fan that a cynic understands the price of everything but fails to grasp its actual value.
