Canada’s
Anti-Trump Finds His Moment
Mark Carney,
the new prime minister seeking a full term in Monday’s election, has built his
campaign around President Trump’s threats to the country.
Mark Carney
has built his campaign around President Trump’s threats to Canada, promising to
negotiate a holistic new deal with the United States to tackle trade and other
areas.
Matina
Stevis-Gridneff
By Matina
Stevis-Gridneff
Matina
Stevis-Gridneff reported from Toronto. She also traveled with Mr. Carney to
Europe last month, and to British Columbia during his campaign this week.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/26/world/canada/mark-carney-canada-election-trump.html
April 26,
2025
Mark Carney
flirted with Canadian politics even as he built a career overseas, rejecting
offers to join cabinets at least twice.
Then in
January, President Trump, threatening tariffs and annexation against Canada,
brewed a crisis that seemed tailor-made for one of the world’s most seasoned
managers of economic turmoil.
Within
weeks, Mr. Carney was prime minister.
Now, he is
leading Canada’s Liberal Party into a federal election, vying for a full term
in the top political job in his country of birth after decades of high-profile
work in the public and private sectors around the world.
Mr. Carney,
60, cuts a slender, athletic figure and is impeccably turned out in tailored
suits. His tone can be professorial with occasional flashes of bone-dry humor.
He lacks the
obvious charisma of his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, who during his heyday made
crowds swoon.
And he also
lacks the polished, retail-politician presentation of his chief election
opponent, Pierre Poilievre, 45, the Conservative Party leader.
And after
years in high-level positions overseas, detractors say he is out of touch with
Canada and Canadians.
But while
Mr. Carney is a novice in elected office, his pitch to Canadians is that he is
experienced in what he says Canada needs right now: a leader as different as
can be from Mr. Trump, and a steady hand to direct Canada through a
generational challenge.
Meeting the
Moment
“If it’s not
a crisis, you wouldn’t be seeing me,” Mr. Carney told a local news outlet in
early March, days before he was elected to replace Mr. Trudeau as leader of the
Liberals and becoming prime minister.
“I’m most
useful in a crisis,” he added. “I’m not that good in peacetime.”
Mr. Trump,
since his election in November, has pushed menacing rhetoric about Canada,
threatening to make the country the 51st state. He has also made Canada,
America’s top ally and trading partner, the target of waves of tariffs, hurting
Canadian exports and industries.
Some
economists predict the levies will push the country into a recession, and an
economic slowdown appears inevitable.
Canada, a
middle power permanently connected to the United States by sheer geography,
depends on its southern neighbor for its security.
Mr. Trump’s
upending of the world order — his embrace of Russia, all-out trade war with
China and attack on other Western allies — leaves Canada unmoored in a changing
world.
Mr. Carney
says he is the man to deal with all this.
He has built
his campaign around Mr. Trump’s threat to Canada, promising to negotiate a
holistic new deal with the United States to tackle trade and other areas. And
he has leaned into Mr. Trump’s annexation threats, presenting himself as
Canada’s defender.
“Donald
Trump wants to break us so America can own us. It is our strength that the
Americans want,” he told supporters at a recent rally. “They want our
resources, they want our water, they want our land, they want our country. They
can’t have it.”
Mr. Carney
did not agree to an interview with The New York Times.
International
Brand
Mr. Carney
has brandished his international connections to convince Canadians that he can
line up allies.
Since
becoming prime minister in March, he has visited London and Paris, and started
negotiating a military industry agreement between Canada and the European
Union.
Born in the
Northwest Territories and raised mostly in Edmonton, Alberta, Mr. Carney was
one of four children. Their parents were teachers. He left Canada to study at
Harvard and then the University of Oxford, where he met his wife, Diana Fox
Carney, also an economist. They have four children.
Mr. Carney
spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs in offices around the world before returning to
Canada and working at the finance ministry.
In 2008, he
became governor of the Bank of Canada, helping Canada survive the global
financial crisis as the U.S. banking system went into meltdown.
In 2013,
because of his perceived success in that role, he was hired as governor of the
Bank of England, the first non-British citizen in the institution’s history to
hold the position.
He was
tasked with guiding the pound and Britain’s vital banking sector through the
disruption of Brexit, when the country pulled out of the European Union.
Mr. Carney
has been using his Brexit experience to highlight that he understands the hinge
moment Canada faces with Mr. Trump in the White House.
“I have seen
this movie before. I know exactly what’s going to happen,” he said on the
campaign trail.
Past Matters
The
Conservatives have zoomed in on Mr. Carney’s past for evidence that he is unfit
to lead Canada.
His
international experience, critics say, is running in rarefied circles like the
World Economic Forum in Davos, painting him as an out-of-touch global elitist
who has not spent any time dealing with ordinary people.
And his
post-central banking career has left him open to attacks. Since 2020 and up
until January, when he resigned to run for Liberal leader, Mr. Carney was the
chairman of the board of directors at Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian
investment giant.
He has been
blamed for the company’s offshore tax tactics, its China expansion and its
investment choices, all of which may have been reflective of shrewd management
of a private enterprise, but are not necessarily appealing to voters. Tax
avoidance by corporations is seen as legal cheating by many voters, while
Canadians have soured on China because of a crisis in the relationship between
the two countries.
And Mr.
Carney has been defensive of both his past lives and his private wealth, at
times snapping at reporters for pressing him to disclose his investments, and
stressing that he has followed Canada’s ethics rules.
A Devoted
Centrist
Mr. Carney
is promoting himself as a centrist and pragmatist, in contrast to his
predecessor, Mr. Trudeau, who skewed left and was criticized for pursuing
ideologically driven policies at the expense of real-world outcomes.
When he
became prime minister, Mr. Carney swiftly ditched a tax on household carbon
emissions that was deeply unpopular, despite having once been a vocal proponent
of this type of policy as one of the world's most prominent advocates for
sustainable, green finance.
Mr. Carney
seems to be trying to respond to many Canadians’ desire for change after 10
years of Liberal rule under Mr. Trudeau, even as the Conservative Party tries
to make the case that there’s hardly any difference between the two men.
Mr. Carney’s
party is polling about three percentage points ahead of the Conservatives as
the country heads to the polls.
He has also
tried to strike an even, mild tone in his campaign, in contrast to Mr.
Poilievre’s combative rhetoric.
But people
who know Mr. Carney point out that, behind closed doors, the economist has a
tough side and, at times, a temper.
Exacting
Boss
In his
previous roles, Mr. Carney had a reputation for being the smartest guy in the
room. And former co-workers say he provided clear and decisive leadership —
something that people who liked his direction appreciated, but sometimes made
others feel bulldozed.
The Times
spoke to five people who worked for Mr. Carney and did not want to be named
because their current roles require them to be politically neutral.
Several said
Mr. Carney would swiftly shut down ideas or debates he felt were wrong — a
practice that became known as “getting tasered” among Bank of England staff,
because it felt like a sharp, unpleasant jolt.
But most
former co-workers spoke admiringly of him and several said he professionalized
the Bank of England in a way that was inclusive and changed some long-held
cliquey traditions.
“He’s very
competent, he’s very confident — the guy masters his briefs like nobody,” said
Anil Kashyap an economist at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of
Business, who has known Mr. Carney for years and worked with him at the Bank of
England.
If Mr.
Carney needed to learn about a topic, Mr. Kashyap said, “he’s going to have
looked at it from three different directions.”
Adult in the
Room
Mr. Carney’s
professional credentials, and his adherence to the Liberal Party’s socially
progressive beliefs, are appealing to a broad cross-section of voters, public
opinion polls suggest. Most surveys show the Liberals are poised to secure a
majority in Parliament, after two consecutive minority governments led by Mr.
Trudeau.
At a rally
in Surrey, British Columbia, last week, Barb and Hannah Gelfant, a mother and
daughter who had driven 90 minutes to be there, said Mr. Carney was both
reassuring in standing up to Mr. Trump and in preserving progressive values.
“For me it
matters that he says everyone is free to love who they want to love,” said Ms.
Gelfant, 25. “It is archaic to me that there can be politicians in Canada who
do not acknowledge the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community.”
“From a
financial perspective, he knows what he’s doing,” said her mother, Barb, 65.
Bryan Pezzi,
53, a library worker, chimed in: “Mark Carney is uniquely qualified,” he said.
“He is the adult in the room.”
Jeanna
Smialek contributed reporting from Brussels, and Eshe Nelson from London.
Matina
Stevis-Gridneff is the Canada bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of
the country.
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