Canadians started the year with Justin Trudeau as prime minister, a man who wore his emotions on his sleeve — who teared up when he announced his resignation in early January, triggering a tumultuous year in politics.
In most ways, his successor Mark Carney couldn’t be more different. His words and gestures, the way he communicates with Canadians and world leaders, all suggest a more button-down and businesslike approach to politics.
Both men share the experience of having brought the Liberal party back from the brink of oblivion at very different moments — of having been the right person, in the right place at the right time. But their public images couldn't be more distinct.
“Mark Carney doesn't wear coloured socks. The reason I say that is because of the symbolism. Justin Trudeau was very performative. Very much one of the challenges was that things would be said but they weren't always actioned,” said Alex Marland, a politics professor at Acadia University who studies political branding and message control.
When Trudeau first became prime minister, the new government's vibes were fresh and exciting. He was the celebrity PM who took selfies with adoring fans and appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone.
“The image of Mark Carney is exactly delivered, top-down, banker, focused, driven — they're just different,” Marland said.
"So much of the Carney brand and co-ordination and messaging, stemming from the election and since then, is incredibly similar to Stephen Harper."
Gone are the days of Trudeau's yoga poses and shirtless jogging shots, of unusual viral moments like the famous triple handshake from the Three Amigos summit.
Carney appears in public wearing stodgy but well-cut dark suits and seeks to maintain a lower news profile. He grants few interviews to domestic Canadian media outlets and even publicly discouraged a cabinet minister from scrumming with reporters recently.
Carney also places a strong emphasis on punctuality. Current ministers who also served in Trudeau’s cabinet now rush to Tuesday’s 10 a.m. cabinet meetings, afraid of showing up late.
In Ottawa, stories are told in party backrooms about Carney's bent for micromanagement and his high standards for cabinet ministers' dress and deportment.
That reputation followed him from his previous job as governor of the Bank of England. There the British press breathlessly reported stories of anxious staffers getting "tasered" by Carney in meetings for falling short of his expectations.
While the opposition Conservatives insist Carney is just more of the same — a less showbiz version of Trudeau — those who worked with the two Liberal leaders point to some key distinguishing features.
Carlene Variyan, a former chief of staff in the Trudeau government, said it’s striking that Trudeau grew up steeped in party politics and media coverage throughout his life, while Carney entered the game professing that he was not a politician.
Both came to power in leader-centric elections anchored on a desire for change. Their slogans shifted from Trudeau’s “real change” mantra to Carney’s post-election messaging about “Canada’s new government” — a phrase borrowed from the Harper government.
Variyan said the top role has gone from “somebody who's been in and around politics their whole life and deeply involved with the Liberal Party of Canada for most of their adult life" to someone who is "brand new to politics.”
“Carney's approach to press conferences is a little bit refreshing in that he doesn't talk like a trained politician all the time," she said. "He will let slip off-the-cuff comments and remarks that tell you how he really thinks or what he really believes.”
While Carney has insisted he's not a professional politician, he has gone some way to proving it with his propensity for small-scale gaffes — mispronouncing names or locations, awkwardly fiddling with machinery or carpentry equipment at staged events.
During the Liberal holiday party last week Carney grinned like the proverbial cat with a canary as he introduced new Liberal Michael Ma, who had just defected from the Conservatives. But Carney also struggled to remember the name of Ma's riding, finally stumbling out "Union-Markhamville" instead of "Markham-Unionville."
Marland said there's a “desire for people, especially coming out of Trudeau, to have somebody who doesn't seem like a regular politician.”
"It's night and day," said Regan Watts, a former staffer to the late Jim Flaherty who has worked with Carney. He said the prime minister is the same in public as he is in private.
"He's exactly who you think he is. He's a very smart, irreverent, funny, generous, warm, charming guy," said Watts. "He has expectations that are high, but he holds others to a standard that he also sets for himself."
Carney appears to be much less immersed in party issues than previous Liberal leaders. His focus on the economy at a time of widespread economic anxiety has allowed him more runway to turn the Liberal brand back to the centre-right.
His government's recent memorandum of understanding with Alberta on building a new oil pipeline to the West Coast is the kind of policy flex that would have been unthinkable under Trudeau.
“I don't think anybody had that on their bingo card for 2025," said Jonathan Kalles, who worked in Trudeau’s PMO. "But he decided he was going to do it, and then he did it.”
He said the conventional wisdom suggests Carney has transformed his office from one that took political considerations as its top priority under Trudeau to one that is more formal and corporate, one that pushes “full steam ahead” with less concern about what's popular.
"The truth is in between, but that’s the perception," Kalles said.
Some of Trudeau’s earliest efforts in office were about opening up the Liberal Party of Canada to new members, and determining how MPs would vote on issues related to abortion and reproductive rights.
Carney, meanwhile, has eschewed Trudeau’s emphasis on feminism and has even stated that Canada does not have an explicitly feminist foreign policy.
“Increasingly, many people in positions of power seem to be men in his circle,” Marland said.
Trudeau's relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump was famously awful. Even as the prime minister spoke about aggressively punching back against the U.S. trade war, the mercurial Trump rattled on about annexing Canada, belittled Trudeau with the title of "governor" and ramped up tariffs.
Brian Clow, former deputy chief of staff and adviser to Trudeau on Canada-U.S. trade, said while Trump is clearly now on better terms with Carney than he was with Trudeau at the end, that’s largely because he grew frustrated with Trudeau for playing hardball.
He said the nature of the personal relationship between a president and a prime minister is often “overstated and oversimplified,” while other factors such as economic integration have more influence over the ultimate outcome of trade talks.
“Some observers oversimplify. They see Trump say nice things about Carney and then they remember what Trump said about Trudeau at the end and they think, 'Wow, what a totally different relationship, isn't that great,'" he said.
“In the same breath, Trump will then talk about the Canadian negotiating strategy in the same negative and critical way that he talked about it under Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland because he's frustrated that Canada is standing up for itself.”
Clow said the quality of the relationship between the two leaders is just one factor in the nation-to-nation relationship — and “frankly not the most important” one when it comes to determining how the trade dispute will shake out.
“Things also started out really positive with China and India under Trudeau, but as government wears on and the years go on and issues come up and conflicts come up, it tends to influence relationships at the top," he said.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
