Who is Mark Carney?
- Josh Latham
- Mar 17
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 26
Mark Carney, Canada's new Prime Minister, took office just days ago. Carney’s career has almost entirely been financial, but his political career took off with a flying start in the Liberal Party Leadership race receiving 86.75% of the popular vote, a landslide that trumped outgoing Justin Trudeau’s 78.76% back in 2013 (Source: Liberal Party of Canada). Carney is entering government with little political experience and has never stood in an election, becoming the first non-MP Prime Minister, but his political aspirations over the years have been his worst-kept secret. Over the weekend he has not eased into his new role and how could he, given the political situation he’s been thrown head-first into. But where did the accomplished economist turned Prime Minister get his start?
Carney was born, one of four, in the Northwest Territories of Canada, to a high school principal and a stay-at-home mum. He went on to graduate with honours from Harvard in economics, before studying at Oxford receiving both an MPhil and DPhil. His former Doctorate Supervisor said he is capable of “rapidly mastering new approaches, perspectives and challenges”. He was an ambitious student who has always had an affection for policy and government (when he wasn’t playing Ice Hockey).
His financial career began at Goldman Sachs, the US investment bank and financial services company, but he would leave the private sector to join the Bank of Canada as a deputy Governor before working in the Canadian Department of Finance, serving under both a Liberal and a Conservative minister.
Carney’s economic career reached what would be the pinnacle for most economists upon being appointed Governor of the Bank of Canada in 2008 and acted to steer Canada through the worst of the Global Financial Crisis of the same year. Carney was deemed a “rock star” and a former finance department official, remarked when Carney’s time at the Bank of Canada was coming to an end that “there are few rooms he’s going to walk into where he’s not the smartest guy in it”.
With the UK’s slow recovery from the financial crash and the effects of austerity beginning to materialise on the British people, Chancellor George Osbourne convinced Carney to take up the position of Bank of England Governor (with an almost three-fold increase to the pay package of the previous governor). Carney made swift work in the Bank of England, overseeing low interest rates, culture and communication change, and even the move to the plastic banknotes that are in many of our pockets today. Carney put his position in jeopardy when speaking out on the Brexit debate, making political enemies in both corridors of the division lobbies. Jacob Rees-Mogg referred to him in a Commons Lobby interview with Sky News as a “second-tier Canadian politician who failed to get on in Canadian politics and got a job in the UK – I don’t think he’s greatly respected”. Carney is a skilled crisis manager, the first person to ever head two G7 central banks, someone who has won friends across the globe, and the only person with the solemnity to deal with Trump. Rees-Mogg's criticisms during the Brexit debate are better described as petty insults from someone losing the argument on the economic benefits of Britain's exit from the European Union.
Carney may not be the smooth talker that Trudeau is, he often uses a more technical style which will not help his efforts in the upcoming Canadian election. However, his CV is something that will give Trump and his ideological counterpart in Canada, Pierre Poilievre, a run for their money and his outsider status allows him to position himself in difference to the previous administration which his closest rival, Chrystia Freeland, would have struggled to do. With Donald Trump and his hopefully toothless rhetoric of Canada as the 51st State and Mark Carney’s popular arrival into politics, the Federal Election polls have overturned what was likely to be an almost historic defeat for the Liberal Party. Some polls showed them at just 16% of the vote in December 2024 to the Conservative's 45%, they have now surged past, with 42% and 37% respectively (Angus Reid Institute).
The Canadian House of Commons is due to return on March 24th if no election has been called, this could have a damaging impact on Carney, who does not have a seat in the Commons, Poilievre can criticise Carney without the ability to defend himself. Carney may very well decide to call the election in the next week and has his job cut out for him but has made a glowing start both domestically and on the world stage, meeting with both Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer this weekend. With the looming federal election, his stable hands might just be what the Liberal Party needs to form a government for the fourth time in a row.
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