By David Ljunggren, Anna Mehler Paperny
OTTAWA (Reuters) -Former central banker Mark Carney, fresh from a landslide victory to become the leader of Canada’s ruling Liberal Party and the country’s next prime minister, met Justin Trudeau on Monday and said the formal handover of power would be quick.
Liberal members on Sunday bet on Carney as the man best placed to take on U.S. President Donald Trump, who has threatened annexation as well as launching a trade war and punishing tariffs on the longtime ally.
Trudeau is still prime minister until Carney formally takes over the role.
“That transition will be seamless and it will be quick,” Carney said after meeting Trudeau. The Globe and Mail newspaper said Carney was likely to be appointed on Thursday or Friday.
Carney, asked about his relations with Trump, declined to answer on the grounds that he was not yet prime minister. Politico had earlier said the two men could speak as early as Monday.
Liberal sources say Carney, who also met the Liberal parliamentary caucus, will soon call for a general election.
“We know this is a crucial time for our country. We are united to serve Canadians,” he told reporters.
Trump’s move to impose tariffs on America’s northern neighbor has triggered an angry backlash in Canada, where provinces pulled U.S. alcohol off shelves and urged people to buy Canadian products instead.
“The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country … if they succeed, they will destroy our way of life,” Carney said in his acceptance speech late on Sunday.
Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said on Monday it was imposing a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to New York state, Michigan and Minnesota in protest.
“President Trump’s tariffs are a disaster for the U.S. economy,” said Premier Doug Ford, adding that he would not hesitate to cut off electricity exports if necessary.
Foreign Minister Melanie Joly welcomed the move.
“If premiers and provinces are using levers that are in favor of our position, (that’s) good news, let’s do more of that,” she told reporters.
The U.S. is due to slap a 25% tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum on Wednesday. Ottawa imposed a 25% tariff on C$30 billion worth of U.S. imports when Trump last month announced his initial tariff plans for Canada and Mexico. He has since suspended the tariffs for a month on goods that fall under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a free trade deal signed in 2018 by Trump, Trudeau and former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
“My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect,” Carney said on Sunday.
The reconstituted Liberal government is likely to be short-lived. If Carney, who does not have a seat in the Canadian parliament, does not call an election, his political opponents have said they would defeat the government at their first opportunity when the parliament reconvenes in late March.
Carney will be up against the official opposition Conservatives, who said there was no difference at all between Trudeau and the new prime minister, who has had long spells in the finance industry.
“Carney will sell out Canada for his personal profit … he’s systematically done it his entire time as a corporate insider,” Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre told reporters.
MAINTAINING MOMENTUM
Carney won the Liberal leadership with 86% of the votes cast by party members. The governor general, the representative of Britain’s King Charles in Canada, will soon invite Carney to form a government.
The Conservatives led in the polls for months, often by double-digits ahead of the Liberals.
The political landscape shifted with the return of Trump to the White House on January 20, the prospect of tariffs and the threat of annexation. It coincided with a surge of support for the Liberals, who have ridden a wave of renewed national unity to come neck-and-neck with the Conservatives.
The challenge now will be to maintain that momentum and convince Canadians to give a party that has spent nearly a decade in power another go – while fighting a trade war on multiple fronts.
“Without overstating it, the challenges are almost unique in Canadian history, if not unique in the post-war period,” said Cameron Anderson, a politics professor at Western University.
Carney, a former governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, will be the first person to become Canada’s prime minister with no prior experience in electoral politics.
(Additional reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Caroline Stauffer, Diane Craft, Deepa Babington and Paul Simao)
