In in the coming days, Mark Carney will be sworn As a 24th Prime Minister of Canada, a political novice entering the ice at a time of maximum danger, both for his party and his country.
Carney, who many years ago was backup goalkeeper For the Harvard hockey team, will be in front of the net for a match that he cannot afford to lose. Donald Trump threatens to use the economic force for Annex CanadaAnd Canadians should go to the polls in a few weeks to decide who will keep the net – Carney or Conservative leader Pierre Hairyvrewhose populist bomb is unusually intense for Canadian policy.
It would be an intimidating task for any politician, not to mention a recruit. Carney never held his elected duties, but the desperate liberals of Canada gave him a strong mandate to lead their group on Sunday, with 86% vote on the first ballot. This decisive vote was entirely based on the strength of the CV of Carney, which the Minister of Immigration Marc Miller underlines is remarkable.
Ask Carney’s CV’s CVs, is “as to ask someone if War and peace is a good book, ”explains Miller, who supported him to take over Justin Trudeau. “It’s a good book.”
Find out more: How Canada fell in love with Trudeau
Trudeau, who was a school teacher before being elected in Parliament, had the thinnest CV of the Prime Minister of Canadian History. He swept his duties with a majority government in 2015 on the basis of his beautyunlimited energy on the campaign track, and surname– He is the son of the former Prime Minister and Liberal icon Pierre Trudeau.
Carney could hardly be more different. He does not have Trudeau’s gift to work a crowd, is not in particular dashing, and his father was a high school director in Fort Smith, a city of 2000 inhabitants in the far north of Canada. Where Trudeau has always been considered a charismatic light weight, Carney is a type of fat in fat. He made his way to Harvard, then University of Oxford, then Goldman Sachs, then the Governor of the Bank of Canada – where he attracted global admiration for his management of the 2008 financial crisis – and Then the Bank of EnglandWhere he kept Great Britain Liquid after the United Kingdom voted in 2016 to leave the European Union.
Carney’s cool was tested by the chaotic years of Brexit, and he made enemies for life among Brexiteers. But the man who gave him the post, George Osborne, who was Minister of Finance of Prime Minister David Cameron, thinks he did a magnificent job.
Osborne recently told the CBC that Carney had technical knowledge and “street intelligences” to deal with the trade war that Trump imposed in Canada.
“I think if I sent someone in the bat for Canada, I would like Mark Carney”, he said. “The Canadian with the the most international experience Throughout Canada is Mark Carney. »»
The liberals of Canada hope that his experience of crisis management will be sufficient to convince voters to re -election them in an expected election this spring.
The Canadians watched, horrified, while Trump has repeatedly threatened to get 25% prices – which could kill up to 600,000 jobs In Canada – Unless Canada agrees to become the 51st state. Trump ordered prices twice, then fell back at the last moment. Some entered into force on Tuesday, although it interrupted the others temporarily after the fall in stock markets and that the three large car manufacturers pleaded for time.
The Canadians reacted first to prices with freezing fear, but it hardened angry and resolution. They repeatedly hooky The starry banner with hockey and basketball matcheshave taken bourbon Outside the shelves, canceled Vacations in Florida, and boycott American products.
After Trump’s first price threats, Trudeau reacted by trying to mix the Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland outside the cabinet to make way for Carney. She to leave Instead, and Trudeau was forced to resign, which led to the succession race that Carney won on Sunday.
The Trump factor disturbed the carefully established plans of Hairyvre, which seemed to win the next elections. For two and a half years, Hairyvre has grown as an agent of the change. A pugnacious critic with an infallible instinct to find the weakness of his opponent, he exploited the generalized anger by cost of living crisis,, register immigrationand one of the Worlds Deep housing crisespromising a big account for Trudeau “”awake“” politicians. But Hairyvre, who resumed his party by exploiting the anger of the Truckers’ protest Against the mandates of vaccines, techniques and messages borrowed from the Maga movement, and this now makes it vulnerable.
When Trump started attacking Canada and Trudeau has resigned, the Liberals crowded in the election. The next elections are now like a dead heat. Since candidates generally get a boost to get out of leadership Convention, conservatives will start as the outsiders, a shocking turnaround after two years when they led 20 points and the liberals Electoral oblivion facing.
Under the horse racing figures, there are more bad news for the conservatives. Vote shows That voters are more likely to trust Carney than Hairyvre to manage Trump-perhaps because part of the Hairy Base is pro-Trump.
This does not mean, however, that Carney is sure to win. The exhaustion with the liberals is deep after almost a decade of power. On other questions – in particular the development of climate and resources – Carney will face challenges. He has a long record To recommend the reduction of financial market emissions – he was an envoy to the United Nations climate – which can make it difficult for him to call on voters who have had enough liberal restrictions on oil and gas production, especially now that Canadians wish to have more pipelines with swamp water so that they can tell Trump where to put his prices.
Find out more: How Canada hung on to the American economy
And Carney’s victory was anything but a coronation. As when Kamala Harris succeeded Joe Biden, there was not enough time for an appropriate competition to test the potential replacements for Trudeau. The liberal leadership race was compressed and Carney was far from being ahead, so his opponents were not motivated to challenge him too much. Freeland, who was once Trudeau’s right hand, seems to want to be part of the Carney team.
The abridged race means that Carney is not tested and can be subject to recruit errors. He struggle to explain A decision to move the headquarters of Brookfield Asset Management, where he was president, from Toronto to New York. It was not a fatal error, but a sign which, like many activities that come into politics – it has not calibrated for requests from the public service.
He showed charm when he teased his leadership announcement on the Daily show In January, but he is not an electric speaker, speaks French as a bureaucrate and has little experience in debating.
Carney often says that he is not a politician, contrasting with Hairyvre, who has never done anything else. But it can be difficult for a technocrat and a multimillionaire present yourself as a foreigner and a change agent. Even those of his team recognize a certain apprehension.
“It is difficult to go from a minister to the Prime Minister,” said Miller. “It is difficult to go from a backback to the Prime Minister. It is really difficult to move from anything politically to the Prime Minister. »»
But the liberals do not have a rescue goalkeeper, and the washer is about to fall.