How old is Mark Carney? When will he become Canada’s next Prime Minister, where is he from, what nationality is he - what are his political views

Carney was born in Fort Smith, in the Northwest Territories, in 1965, and raised in the Alberta city of Edmonton, the child of two educators. The 59-year-old won a scholarship to study in the United States and pursued an intensive education in economics and finance, with degrees from Harvard and Oxford universities.

From there, he served across the world as an executive at Goldman Sachs, with postings in London, Tokyo and New York. He is married to Diana Fox, a British economist, and they have four daughters.

Carney eventually returned to Canada and ran the country’s central bank from 2008 to 2013 during the depths of the financial crisis, where his leadership and decision to quickly slash then continue to hold down interest rates is credited with sparing the country from the worst impacts felt by other G7 nations. In 2013, he became the first non-UK citizen to run the Bank of England since it was founded in 1694.

Carney is an Irish and British citizen in addition to holding Canadian citizenship. In 2025, Carney revealed that he is in the process of revoking his Irish and British citizenship. He has distant relatives in Liverpool and is a supporter of the city's Everton F.C.

Trudeau announced in January he would step down after nearly a decade in office, and Carney announced his intentions to run that same month, pitching himself as a skilled technician with economic knowledge. After his landslide victory, Carney promised to match any U.S. tariffs on Canada “until the Americans show us respect” and vowed to be a tough negotiator against Donald Trump. He said: “We did not ask for this fight. But Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. Make no mistake, Canada will win.”

He won a stunning 85.9 percent of the votes cast by Liberal Party members. More than 150,000 people voted, according to the party’s leaders.

He is expected to be sworn in as prime minister quickly, early this week, officially ending the Trudeau era. His first and most pressing challenge will be to manage the threat from Mr. Trump to Canada’s economy and sovereignty.

But, because Mr. Carney does not hold a seat in Parliament, he is expected to call federal elections soon after being sworn in as prime minister. In those elections, he will face off with Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party.

What are his political views?

In speeches before the 2016 referendum, Carney had warned of the economic impact Brexit would have on the country. He left the Bank of England in 2020 after almost seven years in the job. After becoming the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance in 2019, he advocated for the financial sector to invest in net-zero emissions.

Since then, he has made clean energy, climate policies and economic prosperity for Canada some of the central facets of his campaign, stressing that being low-carbon will help Canada be more competitive. He has proposed shifting the financial burden of the carbon tax from consumers to big corporations and has said that under his leadership, the tax Canadian consumers and small businesses pay on fuel would be replaced with incentives to reduce carbon emissions.

Since the 25% US tariffs on Canada were announced last month, Carney has been an outspoken proponent of dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs. He addressed the issue on Sunday in his first remarks after the vote, slamming the Trump administration’s plans. Trump is “attacking Canadian families, workers and businesses, and we cannot let him succeed and we won’t,” he said. He added that his government would keep tariffs on US imports "until the Americans show us respect".

The former central banker has run on a broadly centrist agenda, a shift from Trudeau, who moved the Liberals to the left. A major promise is to push forward major energy projects like pipelines, which have faced political roadblocks in recent years. He has promised major investments in housing and clean energy projects, and to liberalise trade within Canada, where barriers remain between provinces, as well as diversifying the economy away from the US.