The name on the lips of politicos, reporters and Liberal insiders in Ottawa over the past few weeks does not hold a position in government and has never even run for a seat in Parliament: Mark Carney.
But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed to reporters last week that he’s been speaking to Carney “for years” about joining federal politics.
“I think he would be an outstanding addition at a time when Canadians need good people to step up in politics,” Trudeau said last week.
Reports that Carney is being courted to join the Liberals in some fashion come as the incumbent government is flagging in the polls.
So who is Carney, and what could his presence offer for the struggling Liberals? Here’s what to know.
Who is Mark Carney?
Born in Fort Smith, N.W.T., and raised in Edmonton, Carney earned an undergraduate economics degree from Harvard University and followed that up with master’s and doctoral degrees from Oxford University. He’s a well-known name in global financial circles.
Carney currently serves as chair of Bloomberg LP and the chairman and head of transition investing at Toronto-based alternative investment firm Brookfield Asset Management. Early in his career, he also worked at Goldman Sachs for 13 years.
The economist and banker lends his expertise to financial tech firms like Stripe, where he serves as a board director, as well as to environmental initiatives. Carney is the United Nations’ special envoy for climate action and finance.
He’s also a marathon runner and hockey player.
But most Canadians were first introduced to Carney as the governor of the Bank of Canada. He was appointed by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and replaced David Dodge in the role in 2008 — right before the global financial crisis.
Carney received widespread acclaim for steering Canadian monetary policy and the wider economy through the financial firestorm. That performance led him to take on the same role at the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, becoming the first non-Brit to lead the institution.
While much of his career has been in the private sector and central banking, Carney did have a three-year stint in Canada’s Department of Finance, serving as deputy to two finance ministers during his tenure: Liberal Ralph Goodale and Conservative Jim Flaherty.
In 2021, Carney announced that he was a supporter of the Liberal Party but did not mention a political future.
“To me, humility means recognizing the great good fortune that I’ve had growing up and the responsibility of service that comes with that,” Carney said at the Liberal convention, held virtually that year.
“And that’s why I’ll do whatever I can to support the Liberal Party in our efforts to build a better future for Canadians.”
Why do the Liberals want Mark Carney?
The Globe and Mail reported Wednesday that Trudeau met with Carney over the weekend to urge him to join the government.
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Trudeau was not specific about what role he’d like to see Carney take on within his government. Previous reporting from the Globe and the Toronto Star have suggested that Carney is being considered for the role of finance minister, a position currently held by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland.
In that same press conference where Trudeau was asked about Carney joining the team, he also reaffirmed his “full confidence” in Freeland despite reports in the Globe of “tension” between the prime minister’s office and the finance minister. He did not commit to whether Freeland would stay in the finance minister chair but described her as a “close friend and ally.”
For her part, Freeland said earlier this week that she has had multiple conversations with Trudeau lately and said she has the “confidence” she needs to do her job.
The Globe and Mail reported that Carney criticized the latest Liberal budget — the fourth tabled by Freeland — arguing it was not focused enough on growth.
Asked about Carney, Freeland noted in the same press conference that she is rather familiar with her fellow Albertan: Carney is the godfather of her son, she said, and they talk often.
Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Global Affairs, tells Global News that adding someone with Carney’s “financial acumen” makes sense for the Liberals given the prominence of the economic file with voters.
The goal in adding Carney to the Liberal team would be to change Canadians’ impressions of the “competence of the government on the economy,” he says.
“I think what they’re trying to do is break a very vicious circle that they’re in by doing this.”
Would Mark Carney help the Liberals in the polls?
The Trudeau government was rattled by a byelection loss late last month in Toronto—St. Paul’s, a riding that was believed to be a safe seat in a Liberal stronghold.
Support for the prime minister himself is at “rock bottom,” Ipsos polling conducted exclusively for Global News in June showed. Nearly seven in 10 respondents (68 per cent) said they want Trudeau to step down, the survey showed, a call echoed by at least one Liberal MP and a former cabinet minister.
Asked whether Carney’s presence could inject the Liberals with a boost in the polls, Bricker says such a feat hasn’t been seen in the modern political era.
“So it would be unprecedented. But then again, we’re in unprecedented times,” he says.
There were cases in past generations of bringing in a fresh voice at the right time to turn around political fortunes. Bricker offers Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who joined Lester B. Pearson’s government in 1965 and helped the Liberals push back against the Quebec separatist movement, as one such example.
If there are concerns that Freeland is not an “effective communicator” on the economic file, bringing in Carney could help to “break the current, very negative narrative,” Bricker says.
But it remains to be seen whether Carney as a political voice will be able to reach anyone beyond the boardroom, he adds. At the face of it, Carney does not appear to have the “same kind of buzz” that the elder Trudeau brought to government.
“Maybe he will. Maybe he’ll impress everybody. Maybe he has a level of charisma and ability to connect with individual voters,” Bricker says.
But the problem with bringing in any new voice or shuffling cabinet positions around is that voter attitudes have soured primarily on Trudeau, not those surrounding him, Bricker notes.
“Maybe it will have some effect, but let’s be clear here: When Canadians say they’re upset with the government, their level of upset is very personally directed, and it’s directed at the prime minister himself,” he says.
Is Mark Carney the next Liberal leader?
Beyond a possible role as finance minister, Carney has previously been rumoured as a potential leader of the Liberal Party, which has regularly earned him pre-emptive attacks from the official Opposition. Conservatives have gone as far as to call out Carney as “future Liberal leader” in question period jabs at the sitting prime minister.
Bricker notes that the precedent is there for such an ascension: Trudeau Sr. succeeded Pearson shortly after joining caucus and the Liberals surged to a majority government in the following election.
As for Freeland, a rumoured shuffle out of the finance portfolio would not necessarily quash her own electoral prospects, Bricker argues.
Twice before in Liberal history a finance minister given the boot has returned to lead the party: John Turner in 1984 and Paul Martin in 2003. Turner went on to lose two elections in 1984 and 1988, while Martin secured a minority government in 2004 before losing out to Harper’s Conservatives in 2006.
“Going from being pushed out by the prime minister as minister of finance, actually for at least two leaders of the Liberal Party, has proven a route for success,” Bricker says.
— with files from Global News’s Touria Izri