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Saturday, March 15, 2025

Mark Carney sworn in as Canada’s new prime minister

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Yesterday
20250314
Mark Carney is sworn in as prime minister during a ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Friday, March 14, 2025. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP)

Mark Carney is sworn in as prime minister during a ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Friday, March 14, 2025. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP)

Sean Kilpatrick

For­mer cen­tral banker Mark Car­ney was sworn in as Cana­da’s new prime min­is­ter on Fri­day, and will now try to steer his coun­try through a trade war brought by U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, an­nex­a­tion threats and an ex­pect­ed fed­er­al elec­tion.

Car­ney, 59, re­places Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau, who an­nounced his res­ig­na­tion in Jan­u­ary but re­mained in pow­er un­til the Lib­er­al Par­ty elect­ed a new leader. Car­ney is wide­ly ex­pect­ed to trig­ger a gen­er­al elec­tion in the com­ing days or weeks.

The gov­ern­ing Lib­er­al Par­ty had ap­peared poised for a his­toric elec­tion de­feat this year un­til Trump de­clared eco­nom­ic war and re­peat­ed­ly has said Cana­da should be­come the 51st state. Now the par­ty and its new leader could come out on top.

Car­ney has said he’s ready to meet with Trump if he shows “re­spect for Cana­di­an sov­er­eign­ty″ and is will­ing to take ”a com­mon ap­proach, a much more com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach for trade.″

Car­ney, a for­mer Gold­man Sachs ex­ec­u­tive with no ex­pe­ri­ence in pol­i­tics, be­comes Cana­da’s 24th prime min­is­ter.

Trump put 25% tar­iffs on Cana­da’s steel and alu­mini­um and is threat­en­ing sweep­ing tar­iffs on all Cana­di­an prod­ucts April 2. He has threat­ened eco­nom­ic co­er­cion in his an­nex­a­tion threats and sug­gest­ed the bor­der is a fic­tion­al line.

The U.S. trade war and Trump’s talk of mak­ing Cana­da the 51st U.S. state have in­fu­ri­at­ed Cana­di­ans, who are boo­ing the Amer­i­can an­them at NHL and NBA games. Some are can­celling trips south of the bor­der, and many are avoid­ing buy­ing Amer­i­can goods when they can.

The surge in Cana­di­an na­tion­al­ism has bol­stered the Lib­er­al Par­ty’s chances in a par­lia­men­tary elec­tion ex­pect­ed with­in days or weeks, and Lib­er­al show­ings have been im­prov­ing in opin­ion polls.

Car­ney, who nav­i­gat­ed crises when he was the head of the Bank of Cana­da from 2008, and then in 2013 when he be­came the first nonci­t­i­zen to run the Bank of Eng­land — help­ing to man­age the worst im­pacts of Brex­it in the U.K. — will now try to steer Cana­da through the trade war brought by Trump.

“He will do very well. He’s re­spect­ed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly,” for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Jean Chré­tien told re­porters Fri­day. But, he added: “There is no mag­ic so­lu­tion. This is not a nor­mal sit­u­a­tion. We’ve nev­er seen some­one who changes his mind every five min­utes as pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. It cre­ates prob­lems every­where, not on­ly in Cana­da.”

A new Cab­i­net is al­so be­ing sworn in. François-Philippe Cham­pagne be­comes Cana­da’s new fi­nance min­is­ter, the gov­ern­ment’s sec­ond most pow­er­ful po­si­tion. He was pre­vi­ous­ly in­dus­try min­is­ter. Do­minic LeBlanc goes from fi­nance to in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal af­fairs.

Mélanie Joly re­mains for­eign min­is­ter. Chrys­tia Free­land, a for­mer deputy prime min­is­ter and fi­nance min­is­ter who lost to Car­ney in the Lib­er­al Par­ty lead­er­ship race, be­comes min­is­ter of trans­port and in­ter­nal trade.

TORON­TO (AP) —

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