OTTAWA – Mark Carney has never held elected office, but for years has been touted as a future leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and if the polling goes as expected, he is the favorite to win his party’s leadership race on Sunday.

Carney, the former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, and Goldman Sachs executive, is expected to win the race to succeed Justin Trudeau as both the 14th Liberal leader and 24th Canadian prime minister by the party’s nearly 400,000 members.

Carney recently criticized President Donald Trump as a “bully” in a statement he released in response to American tariffs being put on the northern neighbor. “Canada will not bow down to a bully. We won’t stand by as illegal U.S. tariffs hurt our workers and their families. As Canadians, we need to face this challenge as one united team.”

Canada’s CBC reported Carney compared Trump to Harry Potter’s Voldemort in reaction to the president’s comments on making Canada the 51st state.

“When you think about what’s at stake in these ridiculous, insulting comments of the president, of what we could be, I view this as the sort of Voldemort of comments… Like I will not even repeat it, but you know what I’m talking about.”

Manley, who ran for the Canadian Liberal leadership in 2003, won by former prime minister Paul Martin, said Carney will need new faces in his Cabinet.

He also sees Carney – a Harvard and Oxford universities graduate with a doctorate in economics – as holding an advantage over Poilievre in the next election.

Born in Canada’s Northwest Territories, 59-year-old Carney was also a longtime Goldman Sachs executive, who additionally served as the United Nations special envoy for climate action and finance.

Canada’s Liberals vote on a new leader on Sunday. (iStock)

By contrast, 45-year-old Poilievre has “done nothing but politics for his adult life,” said Manley.

The opposition leader was first elected as a Conservative MP for an Ottawa riding in 2004 when he was 24.

But Manley said, “Poilievre is a very effective communicator,” and Carney has to “prove that he can relate to the ordinary man on the street.”

“Can he appeal to people who elect governments, many of whom don’t particularly read books – and may not even read newspapers?”

“Being a successful politician today requires a different skill set than it was even in my time,” he said.