OTTAWA (ABC) — Canada selected a new prime minister-elect on Sunday night, as Justin Trudeau’s reign nears a close amid a trade war with the United States.
Canada’s Liberal Party announced that Mark Carney was chosen to succeed Trudeau after party members voted in a nominating contest between four candidates.
Carney’s full acceptance speech can be found here.
In his acceptance speech, Carney addressed U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada and the threat Trump has posed towards the country, calling the current events the “greatest crisis of our lifetimes.”
“We didn’t ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves, so the Americans, they should make no mistake, in trade as in hockey, Canada will win,” Carney said.
Indirectly addressing Trump’s calls to make Canada the 51st state of the U.S., Carney added, “America is not Canada, and Canada never, ever will be part of America in any way, shape or form.”
Carney also criticized Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods and said he supports the retaliatory tariffs Canada has imposed on the U.S.
“Donald Trump has put, as we know, unjustified tariffs on what we build, on what we sell, on how we make a living, he’s attacking Canadian workers, businesses and families… we cannot let him succeed and we won’t,” Carney said. “My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect.”
Carney is expected to be sworn in sometime this week by the governor general of Canada, a representative in Canada of Britain’s King Charles III.
The newly elected Liberal Party leader is expected to immediately call for an election as early as late April.
The newly elected Liberal Party leader is expected to immediately call for an election as early as late April.
Trudeau, who was first elected prime minister in November 2015, announced on Jan. 6 his intention to resign as Liberal Party leader and prime minister once a new party leader is determined through what he said would be “a robust, nationwide, competitive process.”
The candidates for prime minister included Chrystia Freedman, Canada’s longtime deputy prime minister who, until December, served as Trudeau’s finance minister; Frank Baylis, a businessman and former member of the House of Commons; Karina Gould, a member of Parliment, who served in Trudeau’s Cabinet as minister of International Development and minister of Democratic Institutions; and Mark Carney, an economist who served as governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.
Heading into the vote, Carney, who has never held an elected office, had emerged as a front-runner.
Carney, who as governor of the Bank of Canada, is credited with helping to guide the country through the worst of the 2008 financial crisis as governor of the Bank of Canada. Carney has compared the comments of President Donald Trump, who has also threatened to make Canada the 51st U.S. state, to a villain in the Harry Potter series.
“When you think about what’s at stake in these ridiculous, insulting comments of the president, of what we could be, I view this as the sort of Voldemort of comments,” the 59-year-old Carney told supporters at an event in Winnipeg last month.
Trudeau initially said he would serve as prime minister until March 24. He will then be replaced by the new Liberal Party leader.
