Meet Trudeau's successor Mark Carney, who once likened Trump to Voldemort

Mark Carney, the 59-year-old Harvard graduate and two-time central banker who has never held public office, was named as Justin Trudeau's successor as the next Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the ruling Liberal Party. Amid Canada's ongoing tensions with the US, Carney has often taken to ridiculing Donald Trump, even once comparing the American President to Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort.

On Sunday, Carney was elected as Trudeau's successor after party members voted in a nominating contest. The 53-year-old outgoing leader resigned in January, months after facing a stiff internal revolt with demands for him to step down.

While Carney will take over immediately as Liberal Party leader, Trudeau will remain Prime Minister for an undisclosed transitional period.

EARLY DAYS

Mark Carney was born in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, on March 16, 1965. He was raised in Edmonton, Alberta.

He received a Bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University in 1988, and Master’s and Doctoral degrees in economics from Oxford University.

At Harvard, he played ice hockey, serving as a backup goalie, and at Oxford, he was co-captain of the university's Ice Hockey Club.

Carney has Canadian, British and Irish citizenship.

GLOBETROTTING BANKER

Carney is a former Goldman Sachs executive. He worked for 13 years in London, Tokyo, New York and Toronto, before being appointed Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada in 2003.

As the Governor of the Bank of Canada, a post which he assumed in 2007, Carney was widely credited with helping Canada dodge the worst of the 2008 crisis and helping the UK manage Brexit.

After nearly five years, Carney in 2012 was named the first foreigner to serve as Governor of the Bank of England since it was founded in 1694.

The appointment of a Canadian won bipartisan praise in Britain after he served as the head of Canada's central bank and after Canada recovered faster than many other countries from the 2008 financial crisis.

After leaving the Bank of England in 2020, he served as the UN special envoy on climate action. Meanwhile, Carney is also known to champion some Liberal policies that have been unpopular within the country's conservative circles, like the federal carbon tax policy, which has been widely criticised.

CARNEY: A TRUMP CRITIC

Trudeau is going to leave the former Goldman Sachs banker with one of the biggest issues the country is currently facing -- Canada's souring relations with the US ever since Trump returned to the White House in January.

In his acceptance speech on Sunday, Carney said Canada faced "dark, dark days, brought on by a country we can no longer trust". He also pledged to keep tit-for-tat tariffs on US imports until "Americans show us respect".

“New threats demand new ideas and a new plan. He’s (Trump) attacking Canadian families, workers, and businesses, and we cannot let him succeed and we won’t. In trade as in hockey, Canada will win,” he added.

Since Trump has threatened sweeping tariffs on Canadian imports and also floated the idea of making Canada the "51st American state", Carney has often ridiculed the American leader.

In one of his most memorable attacks, he compared Trump to the Lord Voldemort, the dark wizard who is Harry Potter's archenemy, over his repeated remarks to annex Canada.

“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 comment," Carney said.

The former banker termed Trump's decision to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canada last month as “illegal” and vowed not to “bow down to a bully”.

In response to Trump accusing Canada of fentanyl trafficking, Carney told CNN that “we are a proud, independent nation. We view ourselves as the greatest country on Earth".

"We have been insulted on multiple occasions by senior members of the administration. We are not going to reciprocate in those insults."

(With Reuters and AP inputs)