Mark Carney said he’s both an “outsider” and a “catalyst” on the first day of his new role chairing an economic growth task force for the Liberal Party.
Carney spoke to Liberal members of Parliament at the caucus retreat in Nanaimo, B.C., on Tuesday, and later took questions from reporters.
The former governor of the Bank of Canada positioned his role with the Liberals as helping to connect private sector interests to the needs of Canadians at a “decisive time” for the economy.
“It’s a big task, it’s an important task. I’m a catalyst in a much broader effort,” Carney told reporters, alluding to the work of Liberal caucus members. He noted he was impressed by the “energy” in the room where he spoke to MPs an hour earlier.
Carney also called himself an “outsider,” and said his role was to gather opinions from “interested Canadians” and feed them into the Liberal growth strategy.
His appointment comes as the Liberals prepare for the fall session of Parliament with a federal election looming at some point in the year ahead. The incumbent government faces a growing gap in the polls with the opposition Conservative Party.
Canadians are more likely to see an election sooner than later after the federal NDP last week ended the supply-and-confidence agreement that sustained Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority Liberal government. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has said he will be voting on issues on a case-by-case basis moving forward.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has made no secret that he would like to go to the polls, calling for a “carbon tax election.”
Carney was asked Tuesday whether he would advise the Liberals to nix the carbon levy, but he did not answer directly.
He said that it’s important to help Canadian companies remain competitive as global manufacturing and other industries increasingly adopt low-carbon policies.
Whether it was in financial reform during his time as the Bank of Canada governor or his efforts to combat climate change in his current envoy role with the United Nations, Carney argued that his specialty had been around “the interface of policy and the economy.”
“We need to be clear-eyed about not the challenge, but the scale of the opportunity, because no country is in a better position for this,” he said.
Carney has long been rumoured as a star recruit for the Liberals politically, either as an MP, as the Minister of Finance or as a possible successor to Trudeau himself.
Carney was asked Tuesday why he took on this role rather than run for a seat with the Liberals and said this was the “outcome” of the conversations he had with the prime minister.
He said he considered it an “honour” to advise the Liberals, and that when Trudeau asked him to come aboard, he said he would “serve to the best of (his) ability.”
“I’m interested in helping our country to grow,” Carney said. “This is where I can help right now in order to move our country forward.”