Ekonomisk oro och friktion med USA i fokus i valet

Mark Joseph Carney (born March 16, 1965) is a Canadian politician and economist who is serving as the 24th prime minister of Canada and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada since 2025. He previously served as the eighth governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013 and the 120th governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020. Carney was born in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard University in 1988, then studied at the University of Oxford, where he earned a master's degree in 1993 and a doctorate in 1995. He held various roles at Goldman Sachs before joining the Bank of Canada as a deputy governor in 2003. In 2004, he was named as senior associate deputy minister for the Department of Finance Canada. In 2007, Carney was named Governor of the Bank of Canada, where he was responsible for Canadian monetary policy during the 2008 financial crisis. He led the Canadian central bank until 2013, when he was appointed as Governor of the Bank of England, where he led the British central bank's response to Brexit and the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. After leaving central banking, Carney served as chair and head of impact investing at Brookfield Asset Management and as chair of the board of directors for Bloomberg L.P. He was also appointed the United Nations (UN) special envoy for climate action and finance. Carney also worked as one of many informal advisors to Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau during the COVID-19 pandemic and was made chair of the Liberal Party's economic growth taskforce in September 2024. In January 2025, following Trudeau's announcement of his resignation, he announced his intention to seek the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, winning a landslide victory in March. Shortly after winning the Liberal Party leadership election and becoming Prime Minister, Carney advised the governor general to dissolve Parliament and trigger a general election.

Pierre Marcel Poilievre (born June 3, 1979) is a Canadian politician currently serving as the leader of the Official Opposition and the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada since 2022. He has served as the member of Parliament (MP) for Carleton since 2004. Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Poilievre graduated in 2008 with a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of Calgary. In 2000, he moved to Ottawa to work for Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day. First elected in the 2004 federal election, he initially represented the riding of Nepean—Carleton before it was reconfigured as Carleton. Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he held various parliamentary secretary roles from 2006 to 2013 before serving as minister for democratic reform from 2013 to 2015 and concurrently as minister of employment and social development in 2015. From 2017 to 2022, he was the Conservative Party’s shadow minister for finance and was briefly shadow minister for jobs and industry. Poilievre ran in the 2022 Conservative Party leadership election, winning a landslide on the first ballot. Described as a populist, he has primarily focused on economic issues, especially the cost of living in Canada and arguing for the repeal of the federal carbon tax. Poilievre is considered to be part of the Blue Tory faction within the Conservative Party.