Canada: Mark Carney replaces Justin Trudeau as new leader and future Prime Minister

The Trudeau era ended last night in Canada with the election of the former governor of the national bank, a man with no political experience who, to remain prime minister, will have to win the general election scheduled for October at the latest.

His lack of political experience worked in his favor. Last night, Mark Carney, 59, a world-class banker, was elected leader of the Canadian Liberal Party and therefore of Canada, since Justin Trudeau, charismatic Prime Minister since 2015, very unpopular in recent years, resigned in January. In the competition to succeed him, Mark Carney faced Chrystia Freeland, the former Finance Minister. Close friends - the former is godfather to the latter's son - Carney and Freeland advocated similar programs on many points, such as cutting taxes for the middle classes.

If Carney has beaten Freeland, it's undoubtedly thanks to his techno profile, a political novice. He looks serious but not worn out. A former governor of the Bank of Canada during the worst of the financial crisis between 2008 and 2012 - his decisions were hailed at the time - and then of the Bank of England, this practising Catholic is not associated with the Trudeau era. Voters even consider him capable of erasing his negative legacy: inflation and the housing crisis, for which he advocates the construction of low-cost prefabricated homes. I'm a pragmatist,” he declared during the first debate. When I see problems, I solve them.”

Originally from Fort Smith on the edge of the Arctic, this son of a schoolteacher and a school principal, later appointed Professor of the History of Education at the University of Alberta, is a graduate of Harvard and then Oxford. For thirteen years, this English-speaker with awkward French worked for Goldman Sachs before being appointed Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada, then senior civil servant in key positions where his mastery of subjects and his good looks earned him the nickname of the George Clooney of finance.

To stay in office beyond the next few months, Carney will have to beat the ultraconservative Pierre Poilievre in the general election initially scheduled for late April or early May, but which may be held in October at the latest. In order to destabilize his opponent, Carney has made his program more right-wing, for example by removing the unpopular carbon tax on households, one of Canada's few environmental measures.

The first task of the man chosen by the voters will be to stand up to Donald Trump, who has been waging a trade war with his neighbor of late, and has hinted that annexing this “broken country” could be part of his plans. According to a poll by the Angus Reid Institute last week, Carney is the preferred choice of Canadians to take on the American president, with 43% of those polled favoring him against 34% for Poilievre - whose “anti-woke” ideas resemble those of Trump.