Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney enters race to be Canada’s next prime minister

Mark Carney announced that he is running to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as leader of the ruling Liberal Party. (Reuters)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia: Mark Carney, the first non-Brit to run the Bank of England since it was founded in 1694 and the former head of Canada’s central bank, said Thursday he is entering the race to be Canada’s next prime minister following the resignation of Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau will remain prime minister until a new Liberal Party leader is chosen on March 9.
Carney, 59, is a highly educated economist with Wall Street experience, widely credited with helping Canada dodge the worst of the 2008 crisis while heading the country’s central bank. He also helped the UK manage Brexit during his 7-year tenure as governor of the Bank of England.
“The prime minister and his team let their attention on the economy wander too often,” Carney said in Edmonton, Alberta, of Trudeau where he made his announcement. “I won’t lose focus.”
The front-runners for the Liberal Party leadership are Carney and ex-Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, whose abrupt resignation last month forced Trudeau’s exit.
The next Liberal leader could be the shortest-tenured prime minister in the country’s history. All three opposition parties have vowed to bring down the Liberals’ minority government in a no-confidence vote after parliament resumes on March 24. An election is expected this spring.
Carney said he knows the Liberals are “well behind,” but said he would win the general election.
Trudeau announced his resignation Jan. 6 after facing an increasing loss of support both within his party and in the country.
Carney quickly launched into an attack on opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who the polls show has a large lead over the Liberals.
He also highlighted the threats by US President-elect Donald Trump, who has said Canada should become the 51st state and has threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on all Canadian goods.
“This is no time for life-long politicians such as Pierre Poilievre,” he said. “Sending Pierre Poilievre to negotiate with Donald Trump is the worst possible idea.”
Poilievre painted Trudeau, Carney and Freeland with the same brush during a news conference in Vancouver earlier Thursday.
He blamed the Liberals for high taxes and slammed the government for suggesting it may put tariffs on energy exports to the US, saying it would hurt the oil-rich province of Alberta.
“Not only have the Liberals weakened our economy, now they’re resorting to dividing our people,” said Poilievre. “We don’t need to be divided; we need to be united.”
A major plank in Poilievre’s campaign has been removing the carbon tax, introduced by the Trudeau government as a fee on the amount of carbon emitted by fuels like gas.
Carney said if the carbon tax is removed, it should be replaced by something that is “at least if not more effective” in having the same impact of reducing greenhouse gas emissions while making Canadian companies more competitive and creating jobs.
An official close to Freeland said she would scrap the consumer carbon tax and instead make big polluters pay. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly ahead of her announcement.
When Carney, who grew up in Edmonton, was named the first foreigner to serve as governor of the Bank of England it won bipartisan praise in Britain.
“I have helped manage multiple crises and I have helped save two economies,” Carney said. “I know how business works, and I know how to make it work for you.”
More recently he served as the UN’s special envoy for climate change and led an alliance of international financial institutions pushing for carbon-cutting measures. Carney has long championed the notion that making companies accountable for their impact on the planet is the first step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
When Carney led Canada’s central bank he was credited with keeping money flowing through the Canadian economy by acting quickly in cutting interest rates to their lowest level ever of 1 percent, working with Canadian bankers to sustain lending through the crisis and, critically, letting the public know rates would remain low so they would keep borrowing. He was the first central banker to commit to keep them at a historic-low level for a definite time, a step the US Federal Reserve would follow.
Like other central bankers, Carney is a former Goldman Sachs executive. He worked for 13 years in London, Tokyo, New York and Toronto, before being appointed deputy governor of the Bank of Canada in 2003. He has both financial industry and government credentials.
He has long been interested in entering politics and becoming prime minister but lacks political experience. The Liberal Party has tried to recruit him for years.
“Being a politician is quite different from being a policy adviser or a central banker,” said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at Montreal’s McGill University.