Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney enters race to be Canada’s next prime minister

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Mark Carney, the first non-Brit to run the Bank of England since it was founded in 1694 and the former head of Canada’s central bank, said Thursday he is entering the race to be Canada’s next prime minister following the resignation of Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau will remain prime minister until a new Liberal Party leader is chosen on March 9.

Carney, 59, is a highly educated economist with Wall Street experience, widely credited with helping Canada dodge the worst of the 2008 crisis while heading the country’s central bank. He also helped the United Kingdom manage Brexit during his 7-year tenure as governor of the Bank of England.

“The prime minister and his team let their attention on the economy wander too often,” Carney said of Trudeau, speaking in Edmonton, Alberta. “I won’t lose focus.”

The front-runners for the Liberal Party leadership are Carney and ex-Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, whose abrupt resignation last month forced Trudeau’s exit.

The next Liberal leader could be the shortest-tenured prime minister in the country’s history. All three opposition parties have vowed to bring down the Liberals’ minority government in a no-confidence vote after parliament resumes on March 24. An election is expected this spring.

Carney said he knows the Liberals are “well behind,” but said he would win the general election.

Trudeau announced his resignation on Jan. 6 after facing an increasing loss of support both within his party and in the country.

Carney quickly launched into an attack on opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who the polls show has a large lead over the Liberals.

He also highlighted the threats by President-elect Donald Trump, who has said Canada should become the 51st state and has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all Canadian goods.

“This is no time for life-long politicians such as Pierre Poilievre,” he said. “Sending Pierre Poilievre to negotiate with Donald Trump is the worst possible idea.”

Poilievre painted Trudeau, Carney and Freeland with the same brush during a news conference in Vancouver earlier Thursday.

The opposition Conservative party was ready for Carney's announcement, releasing a new digital ad branding him as “carbon tax Carney” just hours before he spoke — a reference to his history of supporting carbon pricing policies.

“Mark Carney is back from Europe to continue what Justin Trudeau started,” the ad said, arguing he would behave just like Prime Minister Trudeau in government.

A major plank in Poilievre’s campaign has been removing the carbon tax, introduced by the Trudeau government as a fee on the amount of carbon emitted by fuels like gas.

Carney said if the carbon tax is removed, it should be replaced by something that is “at least if not more effective” in having the same impact of reducing greenhouse gas emissions while making Canadian companies more competitive and creating jobs.

An official close to Freeland said she would scrap the consumer carbon tax and instead make big polluters pay. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly ahead of her announcement.

When Carney, who grew up in Edmonton, was named the first foreigner to serve as governor of the Bank of England it won bipartisan praise in Britain.

“I have helped manage multiple crises and I have helped save two economies,” Carney said. “I know how business works, and I know how to make it work for you.”

More recently, Carney served as the U.N.’s special envoy for climate change and led an alliance of international financial institutions pushing for carbon-cutting measures. He has long championed the notion that making companies accountable for their impact on the planet is the first step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

When Carney led Canada's central bank he was credited with keeping money flowing through the economy by acting quickly in cutting interest rates to their lowest level ever of 1%, working with Canadian bankers to sustain lending through the crisis and, critically, letting the public know rates would remain low so they would keep borrowing.

He was the first central banker to commit to keep them at a historic-low level for a definite time, a step the U.S. Federal Reserve would follow.

Like other central bankers, Carney is a former Goldman Sachs executive. He worked for 13 years in London, Tokyo, New York and Toronto, before being appointed deputy governor of the Bank of Canada in 2003. He has both financial industry and government credentials.

He has long been interested in entering politics and becoming prime minister but lacked political experience. The Liberal Party has tried to recruit him for years.

"Being a politician is quite different from being a policy adviser or a central banker," said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at Montreal’s McGill University.

Mark Carneytalks to his supporters during his Liberal leadership campaign launch in Edmonton, on Thursday Jan. 16, 2025. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)

Mark Carney talks with supporters during his Liberal leadership campaign launch in Edmonton, on Thursday Jan. 16, 2025. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)

Mark Carney speaks during his Liberal leadership campaign launch in Edmonton, on Thursday Jan. 16, 2025. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)

Mark Carney speaks during his Liberal leadership campaign launch in Edmonton, on Thursday Jan. 16, 2025. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)

Mark Carney speaks to supporters during his Liberal leadership campaign launch in Edmonton, on Thursday Jan. 16, 2025. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)

Mark Carney speaks during his Liberal leadership campaign launch in Edmonton, on Thursday Jan. 16, 2025. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)

Mark Carney speaks during his Liberal leadership campaign launch in Edmonton, on Thursday Jan. 16, 2025. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)

FILE - Mark Carney, who has served as the governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, speaks at the Sustainable Finance conference, Nov. 28, 2024. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

FILE - Canada 2020 Advisory Board Chair and former Governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England Mark Carney speaks during the Canada 2020 Net-Zero Leadership Summit in Ottawa, April 19, 2023. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powellsaid Sunday the Department of Justice has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.

The move represents an unprecedented escalation in President Donald Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he's repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.

The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project Trump has criticized as excessive.

Here's the latest:

Stocks are falling on Wall Street after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Department of Justice had served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony about the Fed’s building renovations.

The S&P 500 fell 0.3% in early trading Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 384 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.2%.

Powell characterized the threat of criminal charges as pretexts to undermine the Fed’s independence in setting interest rates, its main tool for fighting inflation. The threat is the latest escalation in President Trump’s feud with the Fed.

▶ Read more about the financial markets

She says she had “a very good conversation” with Trump on Monday morning about topics including “security with respect to our sovereignties.”

Last week, Sheinbaum had said she was seeking a conversation with Trump or U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the U.S. president made comments in an interview that he was ready to confront drug cartels on the ground and repeated the accusation that cartels were running Mexico.

Trump’s offers of using U.S. forces against Mexican cartels took on a new weight after the Trump administration deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Sheinbaum was expected to share more about their conversation later Monday.

A leader of the Canadian government is visiting China this week for the first time in nearly a decade, a bid to rebuild his country’s fractured relations with the world’s second-largest economy — and reduce Canada’s dependence on the United States, its neighbor and until recently one of its most supportive and unswerving allies.

The push by Prime Minster Mark Carney, who arrives Wednesday, is part of a major rethink as ties sour with the United States — the world’s No. 1 economy and long the largest trading partner for Canada by far.

Carney aims to double Canada’s non-U.S. exports in the next decade in the face of President Trump’s tariffs and the American leader’s musing that Canada could become “the 51st state.”

▶ Read more about relations between Canada and China

The comment by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson came in response to a question at a regular daily briefing. President Trump has said he would like to make a deal to acquire Greenland, a semiautonomous region of NATO ally Denmark, to prevent Russia or China from taking it over.

Tensions have grown between Washington, Denmark and Greenland this month as Trump and his administration push the issue and the White House considers a range of options, including military force, to acquire the vast Arctic island.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO.

▶ Read more about the U.S. and Greenland

Trump said Sunday that he is “inclined” to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela after its top executive was skeptical about oil investment efforts in the country after the toppling of former President Nicolás Maduro.

“I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump said to reporters on Air Force One as he departed West Palm Beach, Florida. “They’re playing too cute.”

During a meeting Friday with oil executives, Trump tried to assuage the concerns of the companies and said they would be dealing directly with the U.S., rather than the Venezuelan government.

Some, however, weren’t convinced.

“If we look at the commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable,” said Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company.

An ExxonMobil spokesperson did not immediately respond Sunday to a request for comment.

▶ Read more about Trump’s comments on ExxonMobil

Trump’s motorcade took a different route than usual to the airport as he was departing Florida on Sunday due to a “suspicious object,” according to the White House.

The object, which the White House did not describe, was discovered during security sweeps in advance of Trump’s arrival at Palm Beach International Airport.

“A further investigation was warranted and the presidential motorcade route was adjusted accordingly,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Sunday.

The president, when asked about the package by reporters, said, “I know nothing about it.”

Anthony Guglielmi, the spokesman for U.S. Secret Service, said the secondary route was taken just as a precaution and that “that is standard protocol.”

▶ Read more about the “suspicious object”

Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.

Iran had no direct reaction to Trump’s comments, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to foreign diplomats in Tehran, insisted “the situation has come under total control” in fiery remarks that blamed Israel and the U.S. for the violence, without offering evidence.

▶ Read more about the possible negotiations and follow live updates

Fed Chair Powell said Sunday the DOJ has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.

The move represents an unprecedented escalation in Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he has repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.

The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project that Trump has criticized as excessive.

Powell on Sunday cast off what has up to this point been a restrained approach to Trump’s criticisms and personal insults, which he has mostly ignored. Instead, Powell issued a video statement in which he bluntly characterized the threat of criminal charges as simple “pretexts” to undermine the Fed’s independence when it comes to setting interest rates.

▶ Read more about the subpoenas

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while in flight on Air Force One to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One from Florida, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)