OTTAWA – Liberal leader Mark Carney is promising a “seamless” and “quick” transition as he takes the reins from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Carney made the comments Monday following his resounding victory in Sunday’s leadership vote but did not offer any specifics about the timing.
In the coming days, Carney will need to be sworn in as prime minister, name a new cabinet and sort out his plans for the coming federal election.
Carney told reporters on Parliament Hill that he had a long private meeting with Trudeau on Monday that touched on the transition, national security and Canada-U.S. relations.
“I just spoke with the prime minister at length on issues around the transition. It will be quick. We’ll be coming back to you soon,” he said. “The good news is that you’ll be seeing probably more of me than you want. You’ll have other opportunities and we’ll be making announcements on that.”
Carney, who is not an elected parliamentarian and has not said where he’ll run for a Commons seat, also separately addressed the Liberal caucus on Parliament Hill behind closed doors Monday — a meeting Trudeau did not attend.
The Liberals’ campaign director Andrew Bevan and party president Sachit Mehra were seen coming in and out of the caucus room.
An early election call is widely expected within days or weeks of Carney being installed as prime minister, but the timeline is foggy.
Even Liberal MPs have said they have no idea when the next election will happen.
“That’s up to the new boss,” said Liberal House leader Steven MacKinnon.
Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the party has a short window until March 24, when Parliament is set to return from prorogation.
“The opposition parties have been very clear for weeks and months now,” he said. “They have decided that they would bring this government down regardless of what we could do, so this is the latest day we can be in government and we’ll see whether we should call an election before (then).”
Carney has chosen former cabinet minister Marco Mendicino as his chief of staff.
Trudeau dumped Mendicino — an influential Toronto-area MP — from his cabinet in the wake of a scandal involving the transfer of serial killer Paul Bernardo from a maximum-security prison to a medium-security facility.
At a press event on Monday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre accused the Liberals of trying to “trick Canadians” into giving them another term by choosing Carney as leader.
He said the same MPs and advisers are running the Liberal party and, in a social media post, he slammed the choice of Mendicino as Carney’s chief of staff.
Poilievre also accused Liberals of stealing his ideas.
“If you want any proof that my economic ideas are the best, the Liberals are all trying to pretend that they’re copying them right before the election,” he told reporters. “All the big economic questions over the last five years, Mark Carney has been wrong, and exactly wrong, and I have been right.”
Speaking from Port Moody, B.C., NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said he wants to see Parliament pass legislation to support workers affected by tariffs before the election campaign begins. He said that even if that doesn’t happen, the NDP is ready for an election.
Carney’s leadership rivals all lined up behind him a day after they were defeated.
Ex-finance minister Chrystia Freeland said on her way into caucus Monday that she was “feeling great,” despite finishing a distant second.
Former Liberal house leader Karina Gould said she would have liked to receive more votes but the final result was good for the party.
“It was a unified position and I’m excited about that,” she said.
Former New York Mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg congratulated Carney on his win on Monday, posting on social media that the “U.S.-Canada relationship is vital to both nations, and there’s no one more prepared to strengthen it.”
A breakdown of the leadership vote results released by the party shows that Carney beat his rivals in their own ridings — by wide margins.
Freeland won 188 votes in her riding of University—Rosedale — Carney netted 1,322 votes there — while Gould won 190 votes to Carney’s 818 in her Burlington riding.
Carney swept every single riding across the country through the points-based system, taking in a total of 29,456 points. Each riding was worth 100 points and Carney scored higher than 60 points in each one.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 10, 2025.
— With files from David Baxter, Sarah Ritchie and Craig Lord in Ottawa.
