Mark Carney, the front-runner to replace Justin Trudeau as the new leader of the Canada’s Liberal Party, once compared US President Donald Trump to “Voldemort”, the villain in the Harry Potter films and books.
Speaking at an event amid Trump making statements on making Canada the 51st US state, Carney said, “When you think about what’s at stake in these ridiculous, insulting comments of the president, of what we could be, I view this as the sort of Voldemort of comments.”
“Like I will not even repeat it, but you know what I’m talking about,” he said last month.
Trump has repeatedly called Canada “the 51st American state” and taunted Trudeau, who said in January he was stepping down amid growing dissatisfaction over his performance, by referring to him as a mere US state governor.
Who Is Mark Carney
Mark Carney, who has never held elected office, is a two-time central banker. Born in Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories in 1965, he attended Harvard.
He spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs before serving as deputy governor of the Bank of Canada in 2003. He left in November 2004 for a top finance ministry job and returned to become governor of the central bank in 2008. He then won praise for leading the central bank through the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
He was then poached by the Bank of England in 2013, making him the first non-British governor in the central bank’s three-century history and the first person to ever head two G7 central banks. During his tenure, he also faced the political chaos of Brexit.
After leaving the Bank of England in 2020, the 59-year-old served as a United Nations envoy on finance and climate change.
Carney, who has the most party endorsements and the most money raised among the four Liberal candidates, would be the first person to become Canadian prime minister without being a legislator and having had no cabinet experience.
He currently has a commanding lead over former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, whose resignation last December triggered the crisis that led to Trudeau’s resignation.
The result is due to be announced on Sunday.
(With agency inputs)
