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)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. service member who has been missing since Iran shot down a fighter jet has been rescued, President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post early Sunday.

A frantic U.S. search-and-rescue operation unfolded after the crash of the F-15E Strike Eagle on Friday, as Iran also promised a reward for anyone who turned in the “enemy pilot.”

A second crew member was rescued earlier.

“This brave Warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour,” Trump wrote.

Trump said that the aviator is injured but “will be just fine,” adding that the rescue involved “dozens of aircraft” and that the U.S. had been monitoring his location “24 hours a day, and diligently planning for his rescue.”

The fighter jet was the first U.S. aircraft to have crashed in Iranian territory since the conflict in late February.

Trump said last week that the U.S. had “decimated” Iran and would finish the war “very fast.” Two days later, Iran shot down two U.S. military planes, showing the ongoing perils of the bombing campaign and the ability of a degraded Iranian military to continue to hit back.

In Kuwait, an Iranian drone attack caused significant damage to two power plants and put a water desalination station out of service, according to the Ministry of Electricity. No injuries were reported from the attack, the ministry said.

In Bahrain, the national oil company said that a drone attack caused a fire at one of its storage facilities, which was extinguished. It said the damage was still being assessed and no injuries had been reported.

In the United Arab Emirates, authorities responded to multiple fires at the Borouge petrochemicals plant, a joint venture of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. and Borealis of Austria. They say the fires were caused by falling debris following successful interceptions by air defense systems, but production at the plant in Ruwais, near the UAE’s western border with Saudi Arabia, has halted.

The strike came a day after Israel struck a petrochemical plant in Iran that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said generated revenue that it had used to fund the war.

The war began with joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Feb. 28 and has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off key shipping routes and spiked fuel prices. Both sides have threatened and hit civilian targets, bringing warnings of possible war crimes.

The other jet to go down was a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft. Neither the status of the crew nor exactly where it crashed was immediately known.

Trump renewed his threats for Iran to open up the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global energy shipments that has been choked off by Tehran, by Monday or face devastating consequences, writing Saturday in a social media post: “Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out — 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them.”

“The doors of hell will be opened to you” if Iran’s infrastructure is attacked, Gen. Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi with the country’s joint military command said late Saturday in response to Trump’s renewed threat, state media reported. In turn, the general threatened all infrastructure used by the U.S. military in the region.

But Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Tahir Andrabi, told The Associated Press that his government’s efforts to broker a ceasefire are “right on track” after Islamabad last week said that it would soon host talks between the U.S. and Iran.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that Iranian officials “have never refused to go to Islamabad.”

Mediators from Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt were working to bring the U.S. and Iran to the negotiating table, according to two regional officials.

The proposed compromise includes a cessation of hostilities to allow a diplomatic settlement, according to a regional official involved in the efforts and a Gulf diplomat briefed on the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door diplomacy.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, issued a veiled threat late Friday to disrupt traffic through a second strategic waterway in the region, the Bab el-Mandeb.

The strait, 32 kilometers (20 miles) wide, links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. More than a tenth of seaborne global oil and a quarter of container ships pass through it.

“Which countries and companies account for the highest transit volumes through the strait?” Qalibaf wrote.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed. In Lebanon, more than 1,400 people have been killed and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Ten Israeli soldiers have died there.

This report has been corrected to show that Borealis is an Austrian company and not Australian.

Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Samy Magdy in Cairo; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia; and Seung Min Kim, Will Weissert, Michelle L. Price, Lisa Mascaro and Ben Finley in Washington, contributed to this report.

Followers of Iraq's Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr chant slogans as they wave national Iraqi flag during a protest against U.S. and Israeli attacks on multiple cities across Iran, in Tahrir Square, Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

A bedroom is damaged in a building struck in an Israeli airstrike in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Pedetrians walk by a destroyed building within the Grand Hosseiniyeh, with the mosque visible in the background, which officials at the site say was hit by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes Tuesday, in Zanjan, Iran, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Police officers and their horses take cover in an underground parking garage as sirens warn of an incoming missile fired from Yemen in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Maya Levin)

A man looks at a destroyed building within the Grand Hosseiniyeh complex that officials say was hit by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes Tuesday in Zanjan, Iran, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)