After the official resignation of Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister of Canada, the election of Mark Carney seems to bring new air to a complicated Liberal Party in the political landscape.
However, the influence of the economist labeled as an "outsider" in politics, seems to bring more doubts than certainties for the Canadian population in general, due to his particular views on various issues.
Carney, who will replace Trudeau as Prime Minister of Canada, has been an influential figure in the economic and political sphere, and throughout his career has advocated for various progressive and leftist positions, focused on issues such as sustainability, economic equity, and structural reforms.
During the 2023 Global Progressive Action Summit, Carney called on progressives to focus on building "health, infrastructure, schools, opportunities, sustainability, and prosperity."
In this speech, he used the phrase "masters of our own house" (Maîtres Chez Nous), an expression associated with the Quiet Revolution in Canada, highlighting the importance of national autonomy in the face of external pressures.
Throughout his career, Carney has been a strong advocate for addressing economic inequalities, through the implementation of policies that tend to have the opposite effect to what is sought.
In 2011, referring to the Occupy Wall Street protests, he described them as "completely constructive," acknowledging the frustrations over the growing gap between CEO and worker salaries.
In 2016, he warned about the danger of "staggering wealth inequalities" at a conference at Liverpool John Moores University, pointing out how wealth in the hands of the richest 1% had "grown alarmingly" both in the United States and globally.
One of the most notable aspects of his career as an economist and political leader was his criticism of the world's dependence on the US dollar as a reserve currency.
In 2019, during the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, Carney explained how the dollar's dominance in global trade has had a "destabilizing" effect, and suggested that this hegemony should be replaced with a "Synthetic Hegemonic Currency" (SHC), like Facebook's Libra project, which could be provided through a network of central bank-issued digital currencies.
