Mark Carney

Early Life

Mark Carney was born in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. His father, Bob, was the principal of the local high school. When Mark was four years old, his family moved to Yellowknife. Two years later they settled in Edmonton, where Bob worked with the Alberta government in the department of Indian and Northern Affairs. He later became a professor of education history at the University of Alberta. He also ran in the 1980 federal election as the Liberal Party candidate for Edmonton–South, finishing second. Mark’s mother, Verlie, was a stay-at-home mom who later completed her university degree and became a teacher.

Carney grew up the third of four siblings, with brothers Sean and Brian and sister Brenda. He has said that “Our house was filled with books, and there was lots of discussion on the issues of the day.” His family lived in the Laurier Heights neighbourhood in Edmonton’s west end. Carney worked as a paper boy for the Edmonton Journal and attended St. Rose Catholic Junior High School. In 1983, he graduated from St. Francis Xavier Catholic High School, where he had competed with the school’s English and French Reach for the Top teams. A former teacher once described Carney as an “absolutely brilliant and motivated student, and a really pleasant personality” who “always had a smile on his face.”

Education and Early Career

Like his two brothers, Mark Carney attended Harvard University. He received a partial scholarship and financial aid and was the backup goalie on the Harvard hockey team. Carney initially planned to study English literature and math. But he developed an interest in economics after attending lectures by Canadian-born economist John Kenneth Galbraith. According to Carney’s college roommate, future NHL executive Peter Chiarelli, Carney also showed a natural aptitude for financial management. Every summer, Carney returned to Edmonton to work as a landscaper. He graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics in 1988.

After graduating, Carney worked at global finance firm Goldman Sachs with the goal of paying off his “exorbitant” student loan debts. He started at the company’s office in London, England, before being transferred to Tokyo and New York. In 1991, he returned to school at England's Oxford University, where he earned a master's degree and a PhD in Economics in 1993 and 1995, respectively. While at Oxford, Carney played goal for the Oxford University Ice Hockey Club. He also co-captained the team with future Liberal MP and cabinet minister David Lametti.

Carney then returned to Goldman Sachs as co-head of sovereign risk for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He rose through the ranks to become the firm's Toronto-based Managing Director, Investment Banking in 2002.

Personal Life

Mark Carney met his wife, Diana Fox, while attending Oxford University. She played on the Oxford women’s hockey team and became an economist specializing in Third World development. They were married in 1994 and have four daughters together.

Carney is of Irish background and is a practicing Catholic. He is a close friend of Liberal MP and cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland, another northern Albertan who attended Harvard and Oxford. Carney is the godfather of Freeland’s son. In 2015, Carney was named Britain's most influential Catholic by the Catholic newspaper the Tablet. Carney also holds British and Irish citizenship. However, when he ran for the Liberal Party leadership, he began the process of renouncing both citizenships, saying, “as prime minister, I should only hold one citizenship.”

Carney is a fan of the Edmonton Oilers, Edmonton Elks and Everton FC in Liverpool, England. He is also a marathon runner, having run both the 2011 Ottawa Marathon and the 2015 London Marathon in less than four hours.

Early Civil Service Career

Mark Carney's career as a civil servant began in August 2003. He successfully applied to become one of the Bank of Canada's four deputy governors. (The governor of the Bank of Canada, David Dodge, reportedly told a friend about Carney, “I just hired my successor.”) The position paid less then $400,000 — a far cry from the multi-million-dollar annual salary Carney had enjoyed at Goldman Sachs. Thirteen months into the position, Carney was appointed (on a secondment basis) to be the senior associate deputy minister in the Department of Finance. In this role, he represented Canada's finance interests at G7 meetings. He also oversaw the sell-off of the government's stake in Petro-Canada.

Carney turned down opportunities to become the deputy minister in two government departments. He returned to the Bank of Canada in November 2007 as advisor to the governor, having been tapped for the top job one month earlier.

Bank of Canada Governor (2008–13)

Mark Carney served as the eighth Governor of the Bank of Canada from February 2008 to 2013. He was the second-youngest person to assume the top job at the Bank, after its first governor, Graham F. Towers. Carney started in the job just as the global financial system was unravelling, leading to the recession of 2008–09. Carney introduced many measures in response to the crisis, including lowering interest rates to the lowest level in the country’s history and guaranteeing they would remain low for at least one year.

Many observers credited Carney and his actions for the relatively light impact the financial crisis had in Canada compared to the rest of the world. During the crisis, Canada’s economy outperformed the economies of all the other G7 countries, shrinking by only 2.7 per cent in 2009. As Fareed Zakaria wrote in Newsweek in March 2010: “Canada has done more than survive this financial crisis. The country is positively thriving in it. Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize.” Canada was also the first G7 country to see its employment numbers and GDP return to pre-recession levels.

In 2009, Britain's Financial Times named Carney one of the 50 international figures who would “frame the way forward.” He was also selected by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010. In 2011, the editors of Reader’s Digest Canada named him the Most Trusted Canadian. (Reader’s Digest readers, on the other hand, ranked him 19th.)

In his position as governor of the Bank of Canada, Carney received widespread praise and a high public profile. He was frequently referred to as a “rock star” of the banking world. In June 2013, he was dubbed “the George Clooney of finance” by Alex Brummer of the New Statesman.

Bank of England Governor (2013–20)

Mark Carney was seen as a potential saviour in 2012 when he was selected by a scandal-plagued administration to head the Bank of England and help it recover from the lingering effects of the global financial crisis. Carney served in the top job at the Bank of England from June 2013 until March 2020. He was the 120th governor and the first non-British governor of the Bank since it was founded in 1694. At the time, a poll showed that one-third of Britons thought that Carney’s appointment to the job was “unacceptable,” while 48 per cent approved.

As BOE governor, Carney introduced plastic banknotes and a new policy known as “forward guidance.” It was intended to give investors a clearer sense of how interest rates would behave but drew criticism for being convoluted and confusing. This resulted in mixed messages, leading MP Pat McFadyen to famously compare Carney and the Bank to an “unreliable boyfriend…. One day hot, one day cold.” Carney was also criticized for taking a stand on Brexit in 2016, when he warned that leaving the European Union could send the British economy into a recession. For this, he was accused of politicizing the central bank.

Carney was subjected to intense scrutiny while with the Bank of England. He developed a reputation as a prickly technocrat with an authoritarian streak. Larry Elliott wrote in the Guardian that Carney had a “volcanic temper” and “was respected but not especially liked,” though he did show that “he can keep a calm head in a crisis.”

Later Career in Finance

In 2020, Mark Carney became head of transition investing at the Canadian American firm Brookfield Asset Management, as well as the United Nations’ Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance. This made him responsible for the formation of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) during the COP26 climate conference. He also served as a trustee and member of the Group of Thirty (G30) and the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum. In 2024, Carney was named special advisor for the Liberal Party of Canada’s economic growth task force. He had previously advised the government of Justin Trudeau during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Other Activities

From 2011 to 2018, Mark Carney served as head of the Financial Stability Board, based in Basel, Switzerland. It was set up to recommend strategies for stabilizing the world's banking systems following the global financial crisis. He was also the chairman of the Committee on the Global Financial System at the Bank for International Settlements from 2010 to 2011.

In 2021, McClelland & Stewart published Carney’s acclaimed book, Value(s): Building a Better World for All. It was named co-winner of the National Business Book Award. In the book, Carney criticizes finance-driven capitalism for failing to meet society’s needs.

Liberal Party Leader and Prime Minister (early 2025)

In a 2011 interview, NHL executive Peter Chiarelli, who was Mark Carney’s roommate at Harvard, told Reader’s Digest: “When I met Mark, I remember saying to my friend, ‘That guy’s going to be the prime minister.’ I bug Mark about it every year. And it may come true because he just cares so genuinely about what he’s doing.”

On 16 January 2025, Carney made his first foray into politics, announcing he would run for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. On 9 March 2025, he was elected — on the first ballot with more than 85 per cent of the vote — to replace Justin Trudeau as leader and prime minister.

The move marked a dramatic reversal of fortunes for the party. Under Trudeau, the Liberals had sunk in the polls, surrendering a lead of more than 20 points to Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party. There had been a wave of resignations from both caucus and cabinet as many Liberals anticipated an electoral bloodbath. Many observers predicted a large majority government for the Conservatives in an upcoming election.

However, on 6 January 2025, a beleaguered Trudeau announced he would resign. Two weeks later, newly inaugurated US president Donald Trump began his second term by threatening a trade war with Canada with the goal of annexing it as the 51st state. Nationalism in Canada soared, and concerns over the country’s sovereignty grew — as did concerns over Poilievre’s ability to stand up to Trump, given their similarities in style, rhetoric and policy positions.

On 14 March 2025, Carney was sworn in as the new Liberal leader and prime minister — the first in Canadian history to not have previously served as a Member of Parliament. He is also the first prime minister to be born in one of Canada’s territories.

Carney's first move was to scrap the consumer carbon tax, thereby eliminating the signature issue that Poilievre had built his platform around: a “carbon tax election.” Carney pointedly made his first official foreign visit not to the US, as was customary, but to France. This was followed by visits to Britain, where he met with King Charles III, and Iqaluit, where he unveiled plans for a $6 billion early warning radar system along the Canada-US border into the Arctic. He also announced $420 million worth of new investments in protecting Canada’s Arctic sovereignty.

2025 Election

By 23 March 2025, when Mark Carney called a snap election for 28 April, the polls had the Liberals and Conservatives in a dead heat. But the momentum continued to be in the Liberals’ favour. A poll issued by 338Canada on 28 March showed the resuscitated Liberals with 41 per cent support nationally compared to 37 per cent for the Conservatives. Many polls also showed the Liberals with sizable leads in vote-rich Ontario and Quebec.

However, Carney’s lack of political and campaign experience showed, as he made a series of early stumbles and unforced errors. During a press conference, he got prickly with two reporters who questioned the viability of his blind trust and his potential for conflicts of interest. In the exchange, he told the CBC’s Rosemary Barton that “you start from a prior of conflict and ill will” and to “look inside yourself,” while insisting that he was “complying with all the rules.” Carney also refused to oust incumbent Liberal MP John Chiang from the party after Chiang suggested that a Conservative candidate be delivered to Chinese authorities in exchange for a bounty. The furor around Chiang’s comments did not subside and he eventually withdrew from the race. (Chiang’s riding, Markham—Unionville, was one of seven Toronto-area ridings that the Conservatives managed to flip from the Liberals — enough to deny them a majority government.)

At an event in Nova Scotia, Carney referred to Liberal candidate Nathalie Provost as Nathalie Pronovost and incorrectly said that she was a survivor of the Concordia University massacre, rather than the 1989 shooting at Montreal’s École Polytechnique. Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet pointed to this as evidence that Carney is “a leader who knows nothing about Quebec, who ignores Quebec.” Carney was also criticized for backing out of one of two scheduled French debates because neither of the Green Party co-leaders were invited. This led to the cancellation of the debate. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said it was proof that Carney was “too fragile” to face the other leaders and to stand up to Donald Trump.

Although Carney’s opponents tried to frame his halting, mediocre French as a liability, polls showed him receiving significant support in Quebec in spite of it. On 23 April, Quebec-based pollster Léger pegged Liberal support in the province at 42 per cent, well ahead of the BQ (26 per cent) and almost twice as much as the Conservatives (22 per cent). Adding insult to injury for the Conservatives, an Abacus Data poll showed that 55 per cent of voters credited Carney with eliminating the unpopular consumer carbon tax, compared to 28 per cent for Poilievre, who had spent two years campaigning against it.

In the end, the election proved to be a two-way race. The Liberals and Conservatives combined for 85 per cent of the vote. The Liberals won 169 seats (3 short of a majority) with 43.8 per cent of the vote, while the Conservatives received 41.3 per cent and 143 seats. A surprisingly high number of races were decided by very narrow margins of only a couple dozen or a few hundred votes. The Liberals received the largest share of the vote for a winning party since 1984. It was also the first election since the 1930s that two parties both finished with more than 40 per cent of the vote. Voter turnout was a robust 68.7 per cent, the highest since 1993 but still lower than some pundits had predicted, given the high-stakes nature of the election.

Many pre-election polls predicted a Liberal majority government, but the Conservatives fared better than expected, increasing their seat total by 23. The Liberal victory was effectively secured by the switch in allegiance to Carney by NDP voters nationwide and Bloc voters in Quebec. Carney’s ability to convert what was likely to be a devastating defeat into a fourth consecutive Liberal government was nothing short of stunning, particularly for a political neophyte. Writing in the Walrus, political commentator David Moscrop called it “one of the most remarkable comebacks in Canadian history — maybe the most remarkable.”

Prime Minister and Minority Government, 2025–Present

After the election, Mark Carney said he would ensure that a by-election is held in Alberta “as soon as possible… no games, nothing, straight,” to allow Pierre Poilievre, who lost his seat in the election, the chance to win a seat in Parliament. The next session of Parliament was scheduled to begin on 26 May. Carney announced that King Charles III would deliver the Speech from the Throne — an assertion of Canada’s sovereignty that many saw as a clear signal to Donald Trump, who has long admired the British Royal Family. Carney also continued to distance himself from the policies of Justin Trudeau by flat out refusing to have his minority government form a partnership arrangement with the NDP, which was reduced to seven seats in the House.

Perhaps most significantly, Carney laid out five main priorities for his government: (1) increase Canada’s economic resilience by breaking down interprovincial trade barriers by 1 July 2025; (2) appoint a cabinet and have it sworn in by the week of 12 May; (3) quickly introduce tax reform and ramp up the construction of new homes across the country; (4) hire 1,000 new Border Services officers and 1,000 new RCMP officers and add $31 billion in defence spending with the goal of reaching NATO’s spending benchmark of 2 per cent of GDP by 2030; and (5) reduce immigration to “sustainable levels” by lowering the amount of temporary workers and international students admitted to Canada from 7.3 per cent of the population to 5 per cent.

Carney faced the first real test of his new administration on 7 May 2025, when he had his first official meeting with President Trump at the Oval Office in Washington. The much-scrutinized visit, by all accounts, went very well. An uncharacteristically polite and conciliatory Trump congratulated Carney on his comeback victory (“maybe even greater than mine”) and said the only concession he was seeking was “friendship.” Although he repeated his desire for Canada to become the 51st state, he also said “It takes two to tango” and repeatedly replied “That’s true” when Carney asserted that “there are some places that are never for sale.” Carney also said, “Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign, the last several months, it’s not for sale and won’t be for sale. Ever.”

Honours

• Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012)
• Officer, Order of Canada(2014)
• National Business Book Award (Value(s): Building a Better World for All) (2021)
• George Wise Medal, Tel Aviv University (2022)

Honorary Degrees

• Doctor of Laws, University of Manitoba (2013)
• Doctor of Laws, University of Alberta (2016)
• Doctor of Laws, University of Toronto (2018)
• Honorary Degree, London Business School (2019)