By Karli Vezina
Mark Carney's name means money and Canadians are wondering if he's planning to bring some of that currency into the political arena. An Edmonton native, he attended Harvard, then Oxford and went on to be a successful investment banker with Goldman Sachs all over the world.
Shifting from private banking into the public sector in 2003, he went to work with giants like the Bank of Canada and the Department of Finance. In 2008, Mark Carney became the governor of the Bank of Canada. This is when a lot of Canadians started to hear his name a little more in the news. At the time of his appointment, he was the youngest central banker in the entire G20.
In 2013, Mark Carney was hired to be the governor of the Bank of England. This was legendary as he was the first foreigner to be appointed the position since the bank's founding in 1694. Brought on to modernize the old stuffy ways of England's banks, he spent seven years in the UK, under intense scrutiny from the press.
He took a lot of heat for giving an honest opinion on what Brexit might do to the European Union's economy. As bank governors usually remain apolitical, his remarks that the move could lead to economic disaster were seen as taking sides. He fell out of favour in the media's eye from then on, even after extending his stay twice to ensure a smooth Bretix rollout.
Since returning to Ottawa, Carney has not been idle. He joined the board of digital-payment company Stripe and is currently at the helm of asset-management firm Brookfield’s expansion into social and environmental investing. Carney also continuesto work with the United Nations as a special envoy on climate action and finance.
Despite all of those titles and roles, Carney still found time to write and release a book, Value(s): Building a Better World for All in March of this year. It was this book release that really got Canadian journalists talking about the possibility of Carney getting into politics.
Weeks after his book release, Carney was a keynote speaker at the Liberal party's federal convention where he said, "I’ll do whatever I can to support the Liberal party in our efforts to build a better future for Canadians.” Some say he could bring economic stability to the Liberal party, while others say he's too intellectual and can't connect with the public. When recently asked if he would consider a political run in his future, Carney said, "I never say never," leaving Canadians to wait and wonder.