Who is Mark Carney, the leader of the Liberal Party and Canada's new prime minister?

Mark Carney, a former central banker, won the Liberal Party leadership election on Sunday, March 9, with 86 percent of the vote. He will now be the prime minister of Canada after Justin Trudeau resigned in January.

Carney's ascent comes at a challenging moment for Canada as it engages in an unprecedented trade war with its longstanding friend and neighbour, the United States. Under President Donald Trump, the United States has imposed taxes on Canada and threatened to annex it as the "51st state" of the union. In his victory speech, Carney responded, "The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country," acknowledging US efforts. If they succeed, they will ruin our way of life.

Mark Carney was reared in Edmonton, Alberta, after being born in 1965 parents educators of Irish heritage in Canada's Northwest Territories.

He earned a bachelor's degree in economics with honours from Harvard University in 1988. He then went to Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar, where he graduated in 1993 with a master's degree and in 1995 with a doctorate. It was there that he met his wife, British economist Diana Fox.

As governor of the Bank of Canada that year, Carney received recognition for his handling of the world financial crisis.He decided to lower interest rates by 50 basis points to nearly zero in order to maintain them at all-time lows. He also introduced new emergency loan facilities.

Carney has long advocated for environmental sustainability and understanding of climate change. He was appointed the United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Change in 2019.

He gave Lloyd's Investment Bank a speech titled "Breaking the Tragedy of the Horizon" in 2015. He chastised politicians for their opportunistic handling of climate issues and warned that living standards and the world economy may suffer as a result of climate change.

"The problems that climate change is causing now are insignificant in comparison to what could happen in the future," he said. "Those of you who have a long-term outlook anticipate broader global impacts on property, migration, political stability, and the security of food and water. Why, then, isn't it receiving more attention?

Carney praised initiatives to reduce international organizations' reliance on the US dollar as a reserve currency in 2019 when he was governor of the Bank of England. According to him, it might be replaced by the Chinese yuan or a widely accepted worldwide digital substitute. Consequently, he stated at an international central bankers' meeting in Wyoming, "this could diminish the dominant power of the US dollar on global trade."

What's in store for Canada next?

Since Carney's victory, the Liberal party has had a "Lazarus-like" resurgence.After ten years under Justin Trudeau's leadership, the party's support declined because of an unacceptably high rate of inflation, rising unemployment, and a housing crisis. Last October, party backbenchers petitioned for Trudeau's resignation, and a month earlier, the New Democratic Party left the minority coalition government, intensifying calls for his departure.