Summary
Mark Carney has been elected as the new Liberal Party leader in Canada with a commanding 85.9% of votes, following Justin Trudeau’s resignation.
The former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor will become Canada’s 24th prime minister within days.
In his victory speech, Carney took aim at both Donald Trump and Canadian Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, vowing to maintain Canada’s tariffs until Americans “show us respect.”
Carney, despite never holding elected office, enters leadership as Canada faces trade tensions with the U.S. and a potential early election. He must secure a parliamentary seat and finalize the transition with Trudeau.
Thanks for that summary. I think the big gap in my understanding is that the PM doesn’t even have to be an elected official. They essentially always are, but not having that codified is a surprise.
In my nightmare scenario, the cons eke out a majority, toss Pierre, and name Elon Musk as PM is Canada.
One catch: members of the House of Commons have to be elected to have a seat on the floor where debates and voting happens, so until elected in a byelection or national, Carney will be watching from the gallery and directing someone to put out his opinions. It happens sometimes in Parliament. Much of his work will be in meetings anyway.
Look up Kim Campbell. Our only female Prime Minister.
It’s the same way in the US for the house majority leader (not sure about senate)
The elected members could vote for anyone. If Musk wanted to be the house leader, they are so far up his ass it would probably happen.
It is definitely atypical for the PM not to be a sitting MP, but it is within the confines of the constitution. The PM only needs to be elected by and then maintain the confidence of parliament.
It’s almost certain that he will call an election immediately, however. A non sitting PM won’t maintain parliamentary confidence for long.
Or a Liberal MP in a safe seat will resign and Carney will stand in the subsequent by-election.
They can’t toss Pierre. He would have to step down (like Trudeau) or die. Then the party re-elects a new head who would become PM until an election is called or required as mentioned earlier, we will have an election no later than October this year.
Of course they can. They just don’t do what their whip tells them to do once they have a majority. There is no constitutional rule that party leader has to be PM; there is not even recognition of parties per se.