Carney mulls entering race to replace Trudeau

Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, is considering entering the race to replace Justin Trudeau as Canada's prime minister.

Carney said he is "encouraged and honored by the support that I've already been hearing" from Liberal lawmakers and supporters "who want us to move forward with positive change and a winning economic plan."

"I'll be considering this decision closely with my family over the coming few days," Carney, 59, said.

Trudeau announced on Monday that he is stepping down as Liberal Party leader more than nine years after leading it to power in the 2015 election.

He will officially leave as prime minister after the party chooses a new leader.That new leader will become the country's 24th prime minister.

The Liberals have not unveiled rules and time lines yet for the leadership contest, but it will need to happen quickly.

Canada's parliament is set to return on March 24.

A number of members of Trudeau's government are also likely to step into the race.

Potential candidates include: former finance minister Chrystia Freeland; Dominic LeBlanc, who replaced her as finance minister; Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly; Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson; Anita Anand, the minister responsible to transportation and internal trade; and Christy Clark, the former premier of British Columbia.

Any candidate will have to weigh the difficult odds of winning the next election as the Conservative Party leads the Liberals by more than 20 points in some polls, with an election due within months.

A new Liberal prime minister will face a confidence vote soon after he or she wins the prize. The three major opposition parties have all said they plan to vote to bring down the government soon after the House of Commons returns in late March, which would trigger an immediate election campaign.

Trudeau has said he has attempted for years to recruit Carney to run as a Liberal candidate. The prime minister redoubled those efforts in December, when he believed he had a commitment from Carney to become finance minister, replacing Chrystia Freeland. When informed, Freeland decided to resign and criticized Trudeau in a public letter - creating a political crisis that eventually led to the prime minister's resignation.

Bloomberg