The former Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has won the Canadian Liberal Party Leadership Election in a landslide victory, taking 85.9 percent of the vote. Former Finance Minister and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party came second with only 8 percent of the vote.
This means that Carney will be the next Canadian Prime Minister. He will be sworn into office once Justin Trudeau officially resigns the role (he has currently only resigned his role as Leader of the Liberal Party), which is expected to be quite soon.
Why did Carney win?
It seems that the most likely explanation for such a landslide victory is that Carney was not a member of Trudeau’s Cabinet, as all the other contenders were at one time or another. Indeed, he is such a political outsider that he is not even currently a Member of the Canadian Parliament, which makes him the second person in history to be the Prime Minister and not an MP (the first was John Turner, who won the Liberal Leadership election in 1984 following the resignation of Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre, as Prime Minister). This means that he was not saddled with the unpopularity that has ultimately befallen all the other candidates, as there is no real way for members of the Party to blame him for the current challenges that the party is going through at the moment. This is not to say that Carney did nothing to help himself, however. Throughout his leadership campaign, he stressed that increased focus must be on improving the state of the Canadian economy, which has been struggling for some time now.
In an interview with Alastair Campbell and Anthony Scaramucci on The Rest is Politics Podcast, he made it clear that he would be focusing on driving investment to Canada. He said that the main message of his campaign is “it’s time to build”, making clear that he would scrap the proposed increase in Canada’s capital gains tax. He also stated that he would be scrapping the current carbon tax system in Canada, but he made sure to qualify this by saying that the current environmental agenda will remain, though there will be more of a focus on economic growth within this.
How will Carney’s victory affect the Liberal party?
Due to threats of possible invasion made by President Trump, the Liberal Party has actually begun to climb in the Canadian polls. In January of this year, the party began to climb in the polls. This has continued to the point where, as reported by Ipsos, the Liberals are now ahead in the polls for the first time since 2021, though they only have a narrow lead.
Despite all this, it isn’t immediately clear that Carney is a popular figure. However, a Mainstreet Research poll stated that 42 percent of all Canadians would vote Carney in as Leader of the Liberal party, which does suggest that he is relatively popular amongst the general public.
Will Carney call a general election soon?
Whilst Mark Carney has not formally announced plans to hold a general election, it has been speculated that he will be holding one soon. This seems quite likely, as Carney will be hoping to capitalise on the aforementioned turnaround in the polls. He has to call an election by October 10 2025 at the absolute latest.
