In the news today: Mark Carney succeeds Trudeau as Liberal leader

“I feel like everything in my life has helped prepare me for this moment,” Carney said in his victory speech. “Two months ago, I put up my hand to run for leader because I felt we needed big changes — big changes guided by strong Canadian values.”

Carney captured 85.9 per cent of the vote, beating former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, who came in a distant second despite precipitating the race when she resigned from cabinet.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Freeland hailed the win as a sign the party is in great shape, but said of the final results that she “always knew this was going to be an uphill battle.”

Here’s what else we’re watching…

It could be days before Mark Carney becomes PM

Liberal MPs are gathering on Parliament Hill this afternoon to huddle after the party selected its new leader, former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney.

Carney is heading into a day full of briefings and in the coming days will need to be sworn in as prime minister, tap his cabinet and sort out his party’s battle plans for the coming federal election — but the exact timeline for all these things remains unclear.

An early election call is widely expected to follow in the coming days or weeks after Carney is installed as prime minister, as the Liberal party looks to take advantage of the burst of momentum it gained over the past two months.

Like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before him and even Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, Carney won a resounding mandate from the party base — ultimately capturing 86 per cent of the vote.

Carney’s main rival Chrystia Freeland came in a distant second and said after the event that she always knew it would be an uphill battle, since the party establishment rallied around Carney’s candidacy.

Bank of Canada expected to cut rates amid tariffs

The Bank of Canada’s interest rate announcement arrives on Wednesday in a cloud of uncertainty thanks to a shifting trade war with the United States.

Most economists expect the central bank will deliver another quarter-point rate cut while it waits to see how long the dispute with Canada’s largest trading partner lasts.

The Bank of Canada faces a difficult task: setting monetary policy at a time when inflation has shown signs of stubbornness and the economy picks up steam, while risks of a sharp downturn tied to U.S. tariffs loom on the horizon.

“It’s a very difficult position for the Bank of Canada to be in,” said Randall Bartlett, Desjardins Group deputy chief economist, in an interview.

Even as U.S. President Donald Trump followed through on his promises to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian goods on March 4, the exact nature of those tariffs have shifted with a series of pauses and amendments in the days since.

Canadians remember early days of COVID-19 pandemic

There had been warning signs for months.

There were the reports of dangerous flu-like symptoms in Asia. News of the lockdown that kept tens of millions of people inside their homes in China. Here at home, the growing ubiquity of blue surgical masks. The advice to sing “Happy Birthday” while washing your hands.

In March 2020, Ren Navarro recalled seeing large bottles of hand sanitizer at a beer event in Guelph, Ont., where she was a panellist. The Queen of Craft crowd was thinner than it should’ve been. It was being livestreamed for people at home.

“This was kind of like the unknowing precursor to what was going to happen,” she said in a recent interview.

Days later, Navarro awoke to news of a sweeping shutdown meant to rein in the spread of the novel coronavirus in Ontario — measures that would soon intensify and take hold across the country.

COVID normalized remote work; can the gains last?

When the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020, companies across Canada scrambled to shift their employees to home setups.

Within days, old computer monitors were dragged up from basements and assembled into makeshift work stations. Spouses jostled for laptop space at the kitchen table, while other workers designed camera-ready backdrops of bookshelves and plants for daily Zoom meetings.

For the dozen or so staff at Edmonton-based tech company Punchcard Systems, the new reality meant figuring out “new patterns” of how to communicate as they would have at their downtown office. That meant implementing systems to streamline collaboration and automate workflows, the company said.

Five years on, many office workers from Victoria to St. John’s are back to busy commutes and coffee runs, at least some of the time.

But for Punchcard, now with more than 50 staff scattered across the country, home is where they remain. The company, which develops custom software, apps and other digital tools, has ditched the centralized office in its headquarter city entirely.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Mar. 10, 2025.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press