The Fight To Replace Justin Trudeau Is On

OTTAWA — Mark Carney has for years played coy about his political ambition. The former head of two G7 central banks, green transition guru and Liberal Party economic adviser is finally ending the speculation.

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation on a chilly January day, he triggered an abbreviated leadership race that offers Carney a rare fast-track to the prime minister's office for someone who’s never run for office.

Carney's supporters celebrate the fact he's not a career politician. Detractors point out he has no experience on his feet in the House of Commons.

Should he end up Liberal leader, Carney will be up against ascendant Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, a populist firebrand surfing a wave of anti-Trudeau sentiment — someone who has spent two years perfecting his sales pitch at “ax the tax” rallies in town halls across the country.

As Carney formally enters the race Thursday in his prairie hometown of Edmonton, Alberta, the former bureaucrat who swims with the Davos set already has the backing of a significant chunk of the Liberal Party caucus.

He fancies himself an "outsider," a label he floated during a recent chummy interview with Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" intended to distance himself from Justin Trudeau and his deeply unpopular government.

His critics howl at the notion. Carney moves easily in a room of global elites, came out publicly as a Liberal in 2021 — an outrageous revelation in some circles from the former head of a central bank — and has spent the past several months heading a party task force on economic growth.

Still, he enters the race as a frontrunner in a showdown with Chrystia Freeland, the former deputy prime minister and finance minister whose shock resignation in December supercharged Liberal efforts to give Trudeau the boot.

The burgeoning Carney/Freeland rivalry is rife with parallels.

Both are regulars at World Economic Forum confabs. Each has a deep rolodex that connects to global finance influencers. They've known each other for years. Carney is godfather to Freeland's son.

Each is in a race against time to prove to Liberals — and if successful, the rest of the country — that they're Canada's best bet against the chaotic uncertainty of President-elect Donald Trump.

Off to a running start

Carney soft-launched his pitch to Liberals on “The Daily Show” earlier this week, unveiling a gentle critique of the Liberal Party's current priorities and positioning himself as a change candidate focused on economic growth and tariff threats from the incoming president.

“In a situation like this, you need change. You need to address the economy. We’ve got an economic crisis because of what Mr. Trump is about to do — or saying he’s about to do," Carney said, referring to the president-elect's tariff threat.

"But we also have challenges in housing, cost of living,” he added. “And truth be told, the government has not been as focused on those issues as it could be.”

Carney danced around questions about the leadership race, but everybody knew he was in.

Even before he launched, Liberals lined up to endorse his candidacy.

George Chahal, the party's lone member of Parliament in Alberta, said Carney has "the experience required and the leadership skills needed" to meet an uncertain moment.

Sophie Chatel represents a largely rural Quebec riding north of Ottawa. She cast Carney as a "generational talent" with "a bold, strategic vision for how to build a better economy."

Conservatives are already portraying Carney as Trudeau 2.0 or worse — a carbon-taxing global elite riddled with conflicts of interest. Last year, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner made hay when Carney took on a role as Liberal economic growth adviser.

At the time, the investment giant Brookfield was reportedly lobbying Ottawa for billions in financing for a new asset fund. Rempel Garner pointed out that Carney, whose role involved crafting the next Liberal economic platform, was chair and head of transition investing at Brookfield Asset Management.

"There should be no way in hell that Mr. Carney … should be acting as the prime minister's key economic adviser," she wrote in September.

Started at Goldman, now he's here

Carney was born in Canada's Northwest Territories, but grew up in Edmonton, where the hockey team is still the Oilers — the same part of the country where Freeland spent her childhood.

He graduated from both Harvard and Oxford (so did Freeland) before landing at Goldman Sachs, where he racked up hours at the firm's offices in Boston, London, New York, Tokyo and Toronto.

Carney eventually landed in Canada's federal bureaucracy, rising through the ranks at the Bank of Canada and the Department of Finance. In 2008, former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper tapped him to lead the central bank.

Carney came to prominence during the global financial crisis. Canadians don't typically pay much attention to their central bankers, but Carney became known as a "rock star" as he guided Canada through the uncertainty.

In 2013, he took up a new gig as Bank of England governor — and confronted a new crisis in the form of Brexit during his seven-year term.

Jolly green giant

In 2020, as Carney transitioned away from his second central bank, he launched a new act as global green finance guru — a web of advisory roles and directorships focused on the green transition.

Carney's climate fixation is a double-edged sword. As he plays the global circuit, voters back home are thinking less about carbon emissions — and more about paying the bills.

Carney is the U.N. Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance, and chair and head of transition investing at Brookfield Asset Management. He also sits on the board of Stripe, a multinational financial services firm that has riled Canada's small business lobby.

Carney's climate crusade launched with a globe-trotting splash in 2021, where he unveiled a new effort to align the global finance sector with net-zero goals at COP26 in Glasgow.

That coalition, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, was always a tenuous puzzle to fit together: banks, asset managers and insurers need to first and foremost make money.

Conservatives in the U.S. quickly raised concerns about the alleged "politicization" of finance. But President Joe Biden's administration was supportive, and Wall Street met the political moment and got in line.

The waters quickly grew choppy when some large banks reportedly threatened to quit a year later when GFANZ, led by Carney and other climate finance luminaries like Mike Bloomberg and Mary Schapiro, tried to raise the bar.

Now, GFANZ and its once-affiliated U.N. net-zero industry groups are in full reset mode.

All six major U.S. banks left the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, and BlackRock fled the Net-Zero Asset Managers initiative. Those moves come as U.S. Republicans threaten — and actually bring — legal action against Wall Street firms for allegedly violating antitrust laws in pursuit of climate goals, with their previous membership in net-zero groups as evidence.

Now, the industry's climate landscape is only getting messier as Trump vows to dismantle climate progress.

As Carney steps into the race to replace Trudeau, the field of contenders has thinned considerably.

Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne have already bowed out, insisting their primary focus must be Canada-U.S. relations. Christy Clark, a former British Columbia premier, declined to enter the race, blaming her lack of proficiency in French.

Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and Government House Leader Karina Gould are still mulling runs. For now, Carney's primary opponent appears to be Freeland.

Their showdown won't last long. Liberals pick a new leader on March 9.

Jordan Wolman contributed to this report from Washington.