Who is Mark Carney, the former central banker running to be Liberal leader?

CTV News political commentator Scott Reid says Mark Carney’s campaign is trying to show that he’s the frontrunner for Liberal leader.

After years of speculation about his political aspirations, former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney has officially thrown his hat in the ring to replace Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader and prime minister.

As one of the race’s top three contenders, alongside deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland and Government House Leader Karina Gould, Carney has the endorsement of nearly a dozen current and former cabinet ministers.

“I’m doing this because I love our country,” Carney told a group of supporters and Liberal MPs at his official launch event in Edmonton, Alta., on Jan. 16, later adding “but it could be even better.”

During his campaign launch speech, Carney referred to his own background in economics as both central bank governor in Canada and England, saying he is “completely focused on getting our economy back on track.”

Here’s a look at the former central banker’s history, from his upbringing in Alberta, to his Liberal leadership bid.

Early years

Carney was born in the Northwest Territories, where his father was a high school principal. The family later moved to Edmonton when he was six.

His father, Bob Carney, also ran for the Liberals federally in 1980 in the riding of Edmonton-South, coming in second to Douglas Roche, a Progressive Conservative.

Carney earned his bachelor’s in economics from Harvard University, before pursuing his master’s and doctorate from Oxford University, also in economics.

He and his wife, Diana, who is also an economist, have four daughters.

From the Bank of Canada to the Bank of England

A former executive at Goldman Sachs, Carney was appointed governor of the Bank of Canada in 2008, amid the global financial crisis.

He remains the second-youngest Bank of Canada governor in history.

By that time, he had also done a brief stint as the central bank’s deputy governor and with the federal government’s finance department.

By 2009, while lauding Canada for how well it weathered the prior year’s financial crisis compared to other countries, Carney pushed for others to follow suit, and called for widespread reforms to the world’s financial system.

Carney would later be largely credited for helping steer Canada through the global crisis.

During his tenure as Canada’s central banker, Carney also took on several high-profile appointments, including chair of the Committee on the Global Financial System, and head of the Financial Stability Board for the G20.

He was also named one of the world’s 25 most influential leaders by Time magazine in 2010 — the only central banker on the list otherwise occupied by figures such as former U.S. president Barack Obama — and became known as somewhat of a “rock star” in central banking.

Carney’s five-year term as governor of the Bank of Canada ended on June 1, 2013, and a month later he took on the same role at the Bank of England, becoming the first foreigner to be named governor of that institution in its more than three-century-long history.

Carney, an officer of the Order of Canada since 2014, later agreed to stay on at the helm of the Bank of England for two extra years to help ease the Brexit transition.

Around the same time, in August 2020, Trudeau tapped Carney to serve as an “informal adviser” on the government’s pandemic recovery plan.

April 2021 marked Carney’s official coming out as a card-carrying Liberal, delivering a keynote speech praising many of the party’s policies, and ratcheting up the speculation he was considering getting his name on a ballot.

Following the speech, Nanos Research chair Nik Nanos told CTV News Trend Line that Carney would add “a lot of credibility on the fiscal front to the Liberals,” while also being “a significant target for the Conservatives.”

Also in 2021, Carney published his book, “Value(s): Building a Better World for All,” which is focused on how to “build an economy and society based not on market values but on human values.”

Most recently, Carney worked as the head of transition investing for Brookfield Asset Management, and as a United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance but has since resigned those positions to run for the Liberal leadership.

Leadership bid follows years of speculation about political future

“I think he would be an outstanding addition at a time when Canadians need good people to step up in politics,” Trudeau told reporters this summer, when facing questions about Carney potentially replacing then-finance minister Freeland in her economic portfolio.

Carney has fielded rumours for years that he’s after Trudeau’s job.

He’s thrown cold water on the speculation several times, however, insisting he supports the prime minister, and telling CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos in an interview last January that Trudeau will still be the Liberal leader going into the next federal election, currently slated for October 2025.

Kapelos also asked whether his ideas about the kinds of policies the federal government could pursue means he may be interested in a cabinet position in the Trudeau government.

“Well, look, you don’t just hand out positions as cabinet ministers, but you do hand out gratuitous advice, which is what I’ve been doing,” he said at the time. “And look, I care. This is my country. I care deeply about it.”

Despite that, rumours of Carney either being courted to join government or consider a run at the Liberal leadership have swirled since at least 2012, while several public appearances and speeches last spring reinvigorated the speculation of his potentially finally getting into politics.

The Liberals then announced in September that Carney would serve as chair of a new Leader’s Task Force on Economic Growth, with an aim to “develop and shape ideas for the next phase of Canada’s strategy for near- and longer-term economic growth and productivity.”

Months before Trudeau announced his own impending resignation, Carney’s name had been floated as a possible candidate to replace him, with Nanos Research survey data throughout the summer months and into the fall showing him consistently among the top preferred options to lead the Liberals.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, have attempted to stay ahead of the news, spending months framing the former central banker as an elite Liberal gatekeeper, giving him the moniker “Carbon Tax Carney” and often referring to him as the future Liberal leader, even when he dodged questions about his intent to run.

Carney has never held elected office and currently does not have a seat in the House of Commons. It is not yet known in which riding he will run, but his team has confirmed he will run in the next election regardless of whether he becomes Liberal leader on March 9.

With files from CTV News' Rachel Aiello and Stephanie Ha