Unlock Editor’s Digest Lock for Free
FT editor Roula Khalaf will select your favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Canada’s ruling Liberal Party elected Mark Carney as new leader and therefore prime minister, setting up a showdown between former central banker and US president Donald Trump.
On Sunday, the party announced that Carney had won the contest as replacing Justin Trudeau.
However, as Canada faces a trade war with its southern neighbors, the celebration of Carney and his team in Ottawa is short-lived. Trump threatened to collect widespread tariffs on Canadian exports, unsuccessfully saying the country should become the 51st state in the United States.
In the end, the race wasn’t close. Carney won Trudeau’s former finance minister, Krishstia Freeland, with 131,674 votes (86%) with 11,134 people.
Carney said the party will pursue fiscal responsibility and social justice while striving to unite Canada. “My pledge to you and all Canadians is to build a stronger Canada for everyone,” he said.
He said his government will find new business relationships with “trusted partners.”
“My government will maintain tariffs until Americans show respect for us,” he said.
Carney is expected to soon replace Trudeau, who attended the Liberals event on Sunday.
During the campaign, Carney called out an election shortly after winning the top position, pointing to tackling Trump’s tariff fight to ensure mandate from the Canadians.
“We’ve been working hard to get into the business of our business,” said Dimitry Anastakis, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rottman School of Management.
Trump’s regular attack on Canada has annexed it and threatened to place tariffs on its wood, dairy and steel — revitalised the Liberal Party, which was facing an almost certain election defeat.
Carney said on Sunday that Canada is “never part of America, never part of America,” adding that “we must build a new economy and new trade relations.”
Carney campaigned for being a crisis management veteran best at managing Trump’s hostility, highlighting his time as Canadian central bank governor during the 2008 global financial crisis.
Polls show that the liberals narrowed the Tories’ lead ahead of this year’s election.
“Two months ago, being a liberal leader was like a dead-end job,” said David Coletto, chief executive of Abacus Data, an Ottawa-based voting company.
“Thanks to Trump, Mark Carney will appear as the next PM, unable to do anything unthinkable, leading the liberals to four consecutive election victories,” he said.
For years, it was readily expected that the opposition Conservatives under Pierre Poilierble could form a majority government in the next election. But Trump and Carney as Canadian Prime Minister have changed that trajectory.
On Wednesday, an Angus Reed Institute poll found 43% of Canadians thought Carney was best against Trump.
Carney, 59, pledged to “build the strongest economy in the G7,” and to “reform government and tax systems” with construction and investment incentives.
Recommended
Rumors of Carney’s interest in becoming prime minister later last year have intensified as Trudeau’s government was surprised by polls on immigration policies, cost of living and affordable housing.
Kearney recently resigned as chairman of Brookfield’s asset management. He is also the chairman of climate action and finances for the Bloomberg Committee and the United Nations Special Envoy, where he spent more than a decade at Goldman Sachs.
He vowed to break all his corporate ties and put his asset portfolio in trust if he becomes prime minister.
