
Mark Carney identified as ‘European’ at the World Economic Forum
By Noah Jarvis, True North Wire
Presumptive Liberal leadership candidate Mark Carney may soon be Canada’s next prime minister, but he has previously chosen to highlight his European identity and citizenship.
In a 2023 World Economic Forum panel discussion talking on the transition to a “green economy,” Carney identified himself as a European before talking about how the European Union and United States could dependably transition to a net-zero economy.
“As a European, I am a European actually. Yeah, an Irish citizen. Speaking as a European…” said Carney.
Carney talked about how the United States and European Union are reshoring their trade with countries who are politically and economically aligned, throwing Canada in as an honorary mention at the end of his answer.
“It is a real issue in determining how we build resilience across friends after all, and I would say that certainly the EU and the United States are friends. As are the Canadians, I’ll throw the Canadians in, I’m also Canadian,” said Carney.
While Carney is a native-born Canadian, the former central banker obtained Irish citizenship in his youth and became a British citizen in 2018 during his time as the governor of the Bank of England.
Carney spent just under seven years in London in that role and was later appointed by then-U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson as a finance advisor, working on the COP26 conference that Britain hosted in November 2021.