CNN —
Canada’s next leader is a relative political newcomer, coming instead from a decades-long career in finance where he steered governments through major global crises and periods of upheaval — experience he’s hoping to now leverage as he prepares to take over from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It’s an unorthodox background that could also potentially stand Mark Carney in good stead as Canada seeks to counter a looming economic confrontation with its giant southern neighbor, US President Donald Trump’s trade war.
Carney was elected Sunday to lead Canada’s Liberal Party into the next federal elections later this year. While he has never run for elected office before, rumors have swirled for years about if — and when — he might foray into politics.
The Liberals have been courting Carney for more than a decade, and he advised Trudeau on Canada’s economic recovery from Covid-19. But the banker-turned-politician did not make his official entrance until Trudeau announced his resignation in January. All of his competitors were sitting politicians: Carney is in the unusual situation of becoming Canada’s prime minister without holding a seat in parliament.
But before all that, he was born in Fort Smith, the Northwest Territories, and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. His parents were both teachers, and, true to his Canadian roots, he played ice hockey as a goalie growing up, according to his campaign website.
He then headed to the United States for a degree in economics at Harvard University, before pursuing a master’s degree and doctorate in economics from Oxford University.
His career was similarly globe-trotting. He spent 13 years working for Goldman Sachs, traveling between the firm’s offices in London, Tokyo, New York and Toronto, according to a profile from the Bank of Canada, which he joined in 2003.
By 2008, he was serving as governor of Canada’s central bank, stepping into the job as the world plunged into the Great Recession. During his campaign to lead the Liberal Party, Carney pointed to this time as evidence of his experience navigating crises, saying on his website he had helped protect jobs and stabilize the Canadian economy.
He did well enough that by the time he finished his five-year term, he was scooped up by the Bank of England to be its governor — the first non-British person to hold the position. (Canada is a member of the British Commonwealth.)
The following years were just as crisis-ridden, with the British public voting to depart the European Union. In speeches before the 2016 referendum, Carney had warned of the economic impact Brexit would have on the country. He left the Bank of England in 2020 after almost seven years in the job.
After becoming the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance in 2019, he advocated for the financial sector to invest in net-zero emissions.
“When I became governor of the Bank of England, which oversees the insurance industry, I saw that the number of extreme weather events had tripled and the cost of those events had gone up five times in a quarter century,” he said in an interview on the UN website. “These things really concentrated my mind on climate.”
Since then, he has made clean energy, climate policies and economic prosperity for Canada some of the central facets of his campaign, stressing that being low-carbon will help Canada be more competitive.
He has proposed shifting the financial burden of the carbon tax from consumers to big corporations and has said that under his leadership, the tax Canadian consumers and small businesses pay on fuel would be replaced with incentives to reduce carbon emissions.
Some experts believe Carney’s background could make him uniquely suited for the job as Canada grapples with a souring relationship with the US and an escalating trade war.
“He’s very competent in economics, so with these tariffs, this economic war, a lot of people are supporting him,” said Charles-Etienne Beaudy, political science professor at the University of Ottawa and author of “Radio Trump: How he won the first time.”
Since the 25% US tariffs on Canada were announced last month, Carney has been an outspoken proponent of dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs.
He addressed the issue on Sunday in his first remarks after the vote, slamming the Trump administration’s plans.
Trump is “attacking Canadian families, workers and businesses, and we cannot let him succeed and we won’t,” he said. “In trade as in hockey, Canada will win.”
