Mark Carney Wins Liberal Leadership With 85.9% Of Votes – To Soon Replace Trudeau As Prime Minister

Mark Carney has been elected as the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.Carney clinched victory decisively on the first ballot, in a race that was set in motion earlier this year by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation.

Mark Carney won the Liberal leadership vote handily, with 131,674 votes compared to Chrystia Freeland’s 11,134. The Liberal Party posted an infographic detailing the breakdown in a post that also thanked all the candidates.

After maintaining frontrunner status throughout the two-month race, the former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor will become this country’s next prime minister within days.

As Party President Sachit Mehra revealed, Carney beat out former finance minister and deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, former cabinet minister Karina Gould, and businessman and former Liberal MP Frank Baylis.“Together, we are ready for the year ahead,” Mehra said, noting the looming 2025 election. “We need to knock on doors, make those calls, and chip in where we can, because only together will we win the fight for a strong Canada.”

Who is Mark Carney?

Carney was born in the Northwest Territories, and when he was six his family moved to Edmonton.

Carney earned his bachelor’s in economics from Harvard University, before pursuing his master’s and doctorate from Oxford University, also in economics.

He and his wife, Diana, who is also an economist, have four daughters.Over his pre-politics career, Carney worked in a series of financial positions, from a Goldman Sachs executive, to the second-youngest Bank of Canada governor in history, tapped to stickhandle the global financial crisis.

After his term at Canada’s central bank ended in 2013, he took on the same role at the Bank of England, becoming the first foreigner to be named governor of that institution in its more than three-century-long history. Carney — an officer of the Order of Canada since 2014 — later agreed to stay on at the helm of the Bank of England for two extra years, to help ease the Brexit transition.

Then, in August 2020, Trudeau tapped Carney to serve as an “informal adviser” on the government’s pandemic recovery plan.

April 2021 marked Carney’s official coming out as a card-carrying Liberal, delivering a keynote speech praising many of the party’s policies, and ratcheting up the speculation he was considering getting his name on a ballot.

That same year Carney published his book, “Value(s): Building a Better World for All,” which is focused on how to “build an economy and society based not on market values but on human values.”

After throwing cold water several times on rumours he was looking to jump into the political arena – including heavy speculation over last summer and this past fall around him replacing Freeland as finance minister, Carney made his intent clear just 10 days after Trudeau resign.

Trudeau ‘damn proud of what we’ve done’

With the four candidates sitting in front of him, Trudeau addressed the crowd of loyal Liberals for his last time, just minutes before the results were declared.

“I am damn proud of what we’ve done,” Trudeau said, marking the end of his nearly 12-year run as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, after once quipping that he would “never” be a politician.

His tenure, now coming to a close, saw him rebuild the political organization, refresh its brand and catapult the party back into power.

“Through every crisis, Canadians have shown me who they are. We’ve pulled together. We’ve stood up for each other. And every single time, we’ve emerged even stronger,” Trudeau said.

Former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien also regaled the crowd awaiting the results, and thanked Trudeau for his leadership, noting despite attacks by critics, Canada is “the best country in the world,” citing its status as having the lowest debt per capita in the G7.

Transition date to PM yet to be set

While Carney is now officially the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, he has yet to officially become the prime minister.

Trudeau has said he has no intentions of trying to stay on in a caretaker capacity and is looking forward to handing over the reins to his “duly elected successor in the coming days or week,” but, a date for that transition has yet to be declared.

As Trudeau alluded to earlier this week, he wanted to have a conversation with his successor before deciding on his official resignation date and how long of a transition would be needed.

“It should happen reasonably quickly. But there’s a lot of things to do in a transition like this, particularly at this complicated time,” Trudeau said Tuesday.

Procedurally speaking, Trudeau will have to visit the governor general and officially tender his resignation. At that point, Gov. Gen. Mary Simon would accept, and likely ask his advice on a successor.

She would then invite Carney to Rideau Hall, to swear in the requisite oaths of office and allegiance. And, a date would be selected for his official forming of a new government and the swearing in of his ministry, which would include the unveiling of his refreshed front bench of ministers.