Former central banker Mark Carney, who was elected leader of the Liberal Party last weekend in a landslide vote, will be sworn in as prime minister of Canada on Friday.
Carney will succeed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who announced he would resign in January, but then forced Parliament into recess so he could not be replaced until March.
Trudeau gave a tearful farewell speech at the Liberal Party conference on Sunday and resigned his seat in Parliament the following day, causing a viral sensation by sticking out his tongue as he physically carried his chair out of the building. Trudeau will need to tender his formal resignation as prime minister to the Governor General of Canada, Mary Simon, at some point before Carney is sworn in on Friday
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Governor-General’s residence, Rideau Hall, said Carney and his new cabinet will be sworn in at 11:00 a.m. on Friday.
CBC News reported on Wednesday that even though Carney belongs to the same party as Trudeau, “the two teams are treating the transition as a brand-new administration.” Many of Trudeau’s staffers are cleaning out their desks, although some are expected to remain until the next federal election is held.
Carney’s cabinet choices seem intended to create the image of a major break from the deeply unpopular Trudeau, a fresh start on policy, and a tougher stance against U.S. President Donald Trump. Carney is, however, expected to keep most of the Trudeau administration’s key figures in U.S.-Canada relations, including Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly and Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc.
Many other ministers will be replaced, and Carney’s cabinet will be much smaller than Trudeau’s, with only 15 to 20 members versus Trudeau’s 37. Carney’s chief of staff during the transition is Marco Mendicino, who was dismissed from Trudeau’s cabinet in 2023.
Mendicino lost his seat as public safety minister due to a controversy over a notorious serial killer being transferred to a medium-security prison, an embarrassing display of ineptitude that led to a great deal of buck-passing and finger-pointing.
Conservatives also hammered Mendicino as weak on Chinese interference in Canadian politics, while some Liberals criticized him as being too strongly aligned with Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
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