The Liberal Party, led by Prime Minister Mark Carney, secured control of Canada's parliament by winning the federal election 2025 on Tuesday. The two-time central banker and crisis fighter, who replaced Justin Trudeau as prime minister just last month, now faces his biggest challenge of all-- steering Canada through US President Donald Trump's tariffs.
In his victory speech on Tuesday, Carney promised to chart "a new path forward" in a world "fundamentally changed" by the United States under Trump that is hostile to free trade.
"We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons. We will win this trade war and build the strongest economy in the G7," said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and Britain before entering politics earlier this year.
The 60-year-old former banker had never held office. In normal circumstances, this would have undermined his candidacy, but his high-profile banking career played to his advantage, with the Liberal leader arguing he is the only person prepared to handle Trump.
Carney, who won his first parliamentary seat on Tuesday, was the first person to become Canadian prime minister without having experience as a legislator or cabinet member. He was elected Liberal leader in March, replacing former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who resigned amid low approval ratings after nearly a decade in office.
Soon after taking office, he axed an unpopular carbon tax on consumers and capital gains tax measures. Carney then called for snap polls and ran a low-key five-week campaign to convince voters that his experience managing economic crises made him the ideal candidate to defy Trump.
About Mark Carney
Carney was born in Fort Smith in the remote Northwest Territories. He attended Harvard University, where he played college-level ice hockey as a goaltender. A globetrotter, he spent 13 years at US investment bank Goldman Sachs before being named deputy governor of the Bank of Canada in 2003. He left in November 2004 for a top job in Canada's Department of Finance and returned to become governor of the central bank in 2008 at the age of just 42.
Carney won global praise for his handling of the 2008 financial crisis, following which rumours started swirling that he would seek a career in politics with the Liberals. However, when asked about his possible political ambitions in a 2012 interview, the Liberal leader said, "Why don't I become a circus clown?"
Impressed by this work at the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England poached him in 2013, making him the first non-British governor in the central bank's three-century history, and the first person to head two G7 central banks. Britain's finance minister at the time, George Osborne, called Carney the "outstanding central bank governor of his generation."
Carney, though, had a challenging time, forced to face zero inflation and the political chaos of Brexit. He struggled to deploy his trademark policy of signalling the likely path of interest rates and infuriated Brexit supporters by talking about the economic damage that he said was likely to be caused by leaving the European Union.
After leaving the Bank of England in 2020, Carney served as a United Nations envoy on finance and climate change. From 2011 to 2018, Carney also headed the Financial Stability Board, which coordinates financial regulation for the Group of 20 economies. He has also served on the board of Brookfield Asset Management and was chair of the Bloomberg board, but resigned his UN special envoy position and left all commercial posts after he launched his bid for the Liberal leadership.
(With inputs from AFP and Reuters)
