Canada’s prime minister (and former Harvard men's hockey team goalie) has been commissioned by mandate to steer the nation through a looming trade war and annexation. Former central banker Mark Carney, 59, became Canada’s 24th prime minister after the governing Liberal Party elected him their leader on Sunday in a landslide victory with 85.9% support. “We didn’t ask for this fight, but Canadians step up when someone else drops the gloves.” Carney continues.

Americans, make no mistake, in trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.

It's implausible to know what the United States might actually do from one day to the next — as evidenced by their playmaker’s on-again, off-again trade wars — so Carney began by exposing his opponent, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, as a pugnacious critic unsuited to the technical maneuvers of the ice. Not for merely copying MAGA’s moves, or riding their momentum, but rather for misreading the exhaustion with Liberals and Justin Trudeau’s decade in power as an advantage. "I know how the world works," Carney says.

After working his way through Harvard, Oxford University, and Goldman Sachs, he assumed the governorship of the Bank of Canada, where he drew global admiration for his management of the 2008 financial crisis. Then he went on to become the first non-Brit to lead the Bank of England, where he kept Britain liquid after the U.K. voted to leave the European Union. Think Carney’s experience leading two different Group of Seven (G7) central banks isn’t relevant for his new role? Think again.

The International Emergency Economic Power Act (IEEPA) empowered the U.S. president to impose 25% tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel on Wednesday — ostensibly a reaction to the “America First” agenda — to which Canada replied with a $20.6 billion retaliatory tariff on U.S. imports. The frenetic tit-for-tat roiled stock markets into losing $4 trillion amidst fears of recession and tariffs. On Wall Street, corrections are defined as losses of 10% and bear markets are drawdowns of 20%. A small cap benchmark Russell 2000 is approaching a bear market, while the S&P 500, Nasdaq, Dow closed in correction territory.

“It takes a little time,” Trump replies, meeting the moment on social media.“The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State.”

So in a kind of stunning hat trick, Carney, the only central banker in the room to have marshaled a global economic crisis, has been shuffling some slogans around like “Canada First” and replacing it with “Canada Strong.” A homage to economic warfare, this technocrat turned multi-millionaire has simultaneously scored a win whilst at the same time declaring a fight. "Canada will keep retaliatory tariffs on until the Americans show us respect."

Carney explains. "Canada will keep its retaliatory tariffs in place until the Americans can join us in making credible and reliable commitments to free and fair trade" could mean the team’s new forwards (Liberal Party) will be applying pressure in the offensive zone.

It’s how Carney navigated crises as the governor of the Bank of Canada (2008-2013), and the governor of the Bank of England (2013-2020). Winning bipartisan praise from the U.K. after Canada recovered from the 2008 financial crisis faster than many other countries, it was Carney who helped manage the worst impacts of Brexit in the U.K.

Conservatives, who ran on Trudeau’s unpopularity and cost of living crisis, seemed to have misread the room. Canadians are booing the American anthem at NHL and NBA games; canceling trips south of the border, and many are boycotting American goods when and where they can. Liberals show massive gains in opinion polls, and the surge in Canadian nationalism has bolstered the Liberal Party’s chances in a parliamentary election expected within days or weeks. Carney observes: “The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country. Think about it. If they succeed they would destroy our way of life.” Carney explains:

We are facing the greatest crisis of our lifetimes. We have to build things that we’ve never imagined, and we will have to do so at a pace we never believed possible. We have to unite the strongest, the fairest and the freest country in the world. Above all, we must place people above money.

After decades of bilateral stability, Canada’s next leader appears to be the best qualified to deal with the United States. “The strategy is to pull together in the tough days ahead,” Carney says. “This is about team work.”

And because Carney is a highly educated economist with Wall Street experience, he knows the difference between his glove and stick. Carney, during the 2008 financial crisis, quickly cut interest rates to their lowest level of 1% which enabled bankers to sustain lending through the crisis. He was the first central banker to keep interest rates at a historic low for a definite time period; reassured the public that interest rates would remain low so they’d keep borrowing; and went to advocate the same policies as a special envoy for finance at the United Nations.

Thirteen years in London, Tokyo, New York and Toronto belies that Carney was actually born in the rural Northwest Territories, and raised in Alberta, and leads with an uncharismatic common sense: “During a crisis, it’s important to distinguish what you can’t control from what you can control. We can’t change America, but we can control our economic destiny. We are masters in our own home.”

Parliament resumes on March 24th, a national election will follow, and because Carney will be the first and only prime minister in Canadian history not to have held a seat in the House of Commons, the puck will drop rather squarely between he and his American counterpart. A professed Washington outsider who conflates dealmaking with foreign policy, and a newcomer whose proven his mettle in macroeconomics.

The principles, dear readers, on which the Western alliance once rested are shattered. As the players face-off, a V-H move (Split Butterfly) reacts to a shooter (America First) advancing from behind towards the front of the net (US-Canada Border).

The goaltender (Canada Strong) places the one knee horizontally along the goal line. While the knee closest to the puck remains vertical to the goal post, the goalie (Carney) simultaneously covers quick shots to the near side of the net “by a country we can no longer trust” with energy tariffs, whilst tracking passes to the front of the goal mouth of its underdeveloped Arctic “to create the strongest economy in the G7.”