The frontrunner to take over the reins from Justin Trudeau on Sunday when Canada’s Liberal Party chooses its new leader is a tough-talking former Goldman Sachs executive who has compared President Trump to the Harry Potter villain Voldemort.
Mark Carney, credited with helping Canada dodge the worst of the 2008 financial crisis when he was governor of the Bank of Canada, is viewed by his countryman as the politician most trusted to handle Trump, polls show.
“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,” Carney, 59, referring to Trump’s threats to make Canada the 51st US state.
“Like I will not even repeat it, but you know what I’m talking about,” he told a crowd of hundreds of supporters at a Winnipeg pub last month.
The video player is currently playing an ad.Carney, who was a backup goalie for the Crimson’s hockey team during his undergrad years at Harvard before attending Oxford for postgrad, is from a small town in Canada’s Northwest Territory.
If he wins Sunday, Carney will not only become the new leader of the Liberal Party but also replace Trudeau as the country’s Prime Minister. The former banker — who was managing director of investment banking at Goldman in the early 2000s — will then face the tough decision of when to call a federal election.
Canadian elections are usually held every four years – with one currently set for October – but the Prime Minister can choose to dissolve Parliament and call a snap election any time before then.
Some have speculated Carney would do so sooner than later – maybe even the next day – as the new leader seeks to capitalize on momentum, and a clear mandate from Canadians on dealing with tariffs amid an escalating trade war with the US.
