OTTAWA (TIP): Mark Carney, who was sworn in as Canada‘s 24th Prime Minister on Friday, has three citizenships: Canada, Ireland, and Great Britain. He has already initiated steps to renounce the last two. Earlier, Justin Trudeau resigned as the 23rd Prime Minister of Canada. Born in Fort Smith, NWT, and raised in Edmonton, the 59-year-old renowned banker is an economist who attended Harvard and Oxford. He has led two countries’ central banks: Canada’s from 2008 to 2013 and Britain’s from 2013 to 2020.

His wife, Diana Fox Carney, is a British economist. They first met at Oxford and have four daughters: Sophia, Amelia, Tess, and Cleo. Has never run for Parliament but is known to many people in the Liberals who held key portfolios in the Trudeau government.

Interestingly, one of his Oxford friends married Chrystia Freeland, who was Justin Trudeau’s finance minister. Catherine McKenna, the former environment minister, and Anita Anand, the current Transport Minister, are also counted among friends of the new Prime Minister.

The role he played in weathering the 2008 financial crisis in Canada and the 2016 Brexit shock in Britain made him a sought-after expert on another emergency, the pandemic. It led to his installation as an informal adviser on COVID-19 economic strategy.

He became so indispensable that Justin Trudeau toyed with the idea of making him finance minister in place of Chrystia Freeland. However, the move created ripples. Chrystia Freeland surprised everyone with her resignation hours before she was to present the fall Financial Report in the House of Commons. It also helped trigger the leadership race that brought Mark Carney the top job. Chrystia Freeland has known Mark Carney for years, as has her husband, Graham Bowley, who studied with him at Oxford.

In his run for the Liberal Party leadership, Mark Carney maintained that he would retaliate dollar for dollar against U.S. tariffs and help Canada weather the shock by reducing its internal trade barriers and exploring new international markets. He also declared that he would phase out carbon pricing at the consumer and business level but not the industrial level.

Before his carnation, Mark Carney has divested all assets, other than cash and real estate, into a blind trust, a spokesperson told media without divulging how much those assets were worth, so it was not clear how wealthy the former corporate executive was before entering politics.

Going by indications, he is likely to call a snap election within days, setting up a fierce battle of ballots between his Liberals and Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives in late April or early May for political supremacy in Canada for the next four years. Soon after assuming office, he is expected to travel to London and Paris for talks, including with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, as Europe and Canada have much to discuss to retaliate against steel and aluminium tariffs by the United States.

Meanwhile, before relinquishing office, Justin Trudeau posted a goodbye video to social media, saying he leaves the prime ministership “proud to have served a country full of people who stand up for what’s right.”

After braving two no-confidence motions in November and December last year, Trudeau announced his decision to step down as Prime Minister after his party had chosen his successor this past weekend. Mark Carney, as expected, downsized his Cabinet, while retaining Mélanie Joly in Foreign Affairs, David McGuinty in Public Safety, and Dominic LeBlanc in Finance so that they continue to concentrate on the Canada-U.S. trade dispute. In January, the Governor-General had, at Justin Trudeau’s request, prorogued Parliament until March 24, suspending all House business that could bring the minority government down while the leadership race was in progress.

The new Prime Minister has the option to call a snap election before the House of Commons resumes its sitting. He may do this the week before the prorogation ends.

Political circles are agog with speculations that April 28 or May 5 may be election dates under consideration, giving parties just more than a month on the campaign trail, a fairly standard length for federal elections.