Trudeau in talks with Mark Carney to join liberal government, sources say

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held talks on Sunday with Mark Carney and urged the former Bank of Canada governor to join the Liberal government, four sources say.

 

Mr. Trudeau said Mr. Carney could become a member of the government through a by-election or wait to run when the general election is scheduled for October, 2025. He was not offered the post of finance minister or any other cabinet position, three of the four sources said.

 

The Globe and Mail is not identifying the four sources who were not authorized to discuss Mr. Trudeau’s interactions with Mr. Carney and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

 

Mr. Carney was non-committal in his discussions with Mr. Trudeau about whether he is ready to take the leap into federal politics, two of the sources said. The former governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England did not respond to requests for comment.

 

Two of the sources with direct knowledge also told The Globe that the Prime Minister has privately assured Ms. Freeland that her job as finance minister is currently safe.

 

On Friday, Mr. Trudeau will meet with his cabinet for a brief virtual session just before he begins his summer vacation, two other government sources said. One of them said ministers were told the meeting was regarding appointments.

 

The Globe is not identifying the government sources because they were not authorized to disclose the Prime Minister’s schedule in advance.

 

The outreach to Mr. Carney comes as the government has trailed the Conservative Party by a double-digit margin for months and after the Liberal Party lost the Toronto-St. Paul’s riding, considered a safe seat, to a Conservative in June.

 

The Globe reported last Thursday that Mr. Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford and other PMO officials view Ms. Freeland as ineffective in selling the government’s economic policies, which have come under assault from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

 

Other criticism includes that Ms. Freeland is not doing enough to win over members of the Liberal caucus, The Globe reported.

 

However, one of the four sources, who is a senior government official, disputed that there is displeasure in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) over Ms. Freeland’s performance. There is no plan to remove her as Finance Minister over such concerns in the medium term, the official said.

 

The Globe reported last week, citing sources, that the PMO had discussed a scenario about replacing Ms. Freeland with Mr. Carney, who is now chair of Brookfield Asset Management and chairman of Bloomberg Inc., parent company of Bloomberg L.P.

 

In that scenario, Ms. Freeland would move back to the Department of Global Affairs, a portfolio she held before becoming Finance Minister. Ms. Freeland won high praise from the business community as foreign affairs minister when she renegotiated the trilateral free-trade agreement with Mexico and the United States while Donald Trump was president.

 

In response to The Globe’s reporting, Mr. Trudeau told a news conference last week that he had been trying to recruit Mr. Carney for years. He did not directly answer a question about Ms. Freeland’s future in the finance minister post but said he has “full confidence in her abilities.”

 

Nik Nanos, chief data scientist at Nanos Research, said both Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Carney would benefit if the former central banker stepped into the fray now.

 

For Mr. Carney, doing so would help extinguish any comparisons to past Liberal leadership hopefuls who tried to parachute into the top job without first putting the time in and demonstrating their political skills, the pollster said.

 

“If he’s serious about running for the leadership of the Liberals, this would actually be a step in the right direction,” Mr. Nanos said.

 

The win for Mr. Trudeau is threefold, he added. A tired government would get a fresh new face, Mr. Carney’s entrance would signal a pivot on policy, and it would fight the narrative that the Liberals are losing and can’t attract star candidates.

 

“I could understand how this would be very appealing for Justin Trudeau, because it’s basically a three-for-one,” Mr. Nanos said.

 

The Finance Minister, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, told reporters Tuesday she had a long conversation with Mr. Trudeau on Friday, spent much of Saturday with him at events in the Greater Toronto Area and also travelled to Ottawa to meet with him on Monday. She met him again on Wednesday in Toronto, where they made a transit-funding announcement. Her itinerary says she is returning to Ottawa for private meetings on Thursday.

 

Ms. Freeland declined on Tuesday to disclose what, if any, assurances the Prime Minister gave her and expressed gratitude for the job she has. She also noted that she is close with Mr. Carney and said they are in regular contact, but didn’t clarify when asked if she has also tried to recruit him.

 

The Prime Minister’s Office has declined to share publicly what message Mr. Trudeau gave Ms. Freeland in their private meetings. Instead the PMO re-sent a statement Tuesday that it first issued last week, which said the assertions reported by The Globe are “not accurate” and “the Prime Minister, and his office have full confidence in Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland.”

The by-election loss in Toronto-St. Paul’s and inability of the government to close the public-opinion gap with the Conservatives have put pressure on Mr. Trudeau to either step down, shuffle his cabinet, renew his senior staff or shift policy directions. Several former Jean Chrétien-era ministers have publicly called for his exit, but only one sitting MP, Wayne Long from New Brunswick, has added his name to those demands.

 

The stories over the last week raise questions about what’s happening in the PMO, said Alex Marland, the Jarislowsky Chair in trust and political leadership at Acadia University who researches party loyalty. He said if the leaks weren’t sanctioned by Mr. Trudeau’s office, then it should have shut the story down and announced an investigation into them.

 

He also noted that the Prime Minister has declined to publicly give Ms. Freeland the same certainty that he did after the 2021 campaign, when Mr. Trudeau announced within two weeks of the election result that she would stay in her roles – well before the full cabinet was decided. The ambiguity now raises questions about why he can’t be declarative, Prof. Marland said, “If you’re not now, then it tells us something.”

 

He also said it’s usual practice for a Prime Minister not to offer a cabinet post to a prospective candidate. It may actually be to Mr. Carney’s benefit to join the Liberals but stay on the backbench, Prof. Marland said, because it gives him the chance to establish his political chops and grow his network while keeping his distance from the Prime Minister.

 

 

 

 

This article was first reported by The Globe and Mail