Photos of Liberal leadership candidate Mark Carney relaxing with convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell at a swanky event in 2013 recently resurfaced, just as reports indicate Canary is preparing to enter the race.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year jail sentence for her role in recruiting, and grooming minor girls in a sex-trafficking ring run by her longtime partner Jeffrey Epstein.
The photos began going viral on social media last week, which show Carney and his wife Diana Fox Carney with Maxwell at a social event in England called the Wilderness Festival in 2013.
The festival describes itself as a “four-day party like no other,” a “weekend of escapism, high jinks, and wholesome hedonism.”
The event takes place on the grounds of Cornbury Park, a massive estate owned by Carney’s sister-in-law Lady Tania Rotherwick.
It’s a place where “you can be who you want to be,” and “explore and indulge your wild side.”
Maxwell frequently attended the Wilderness Festival and was said to have been a close friend of Rotherwick, often staying in her guest house.
At the time the photos were taken, Carney had recently moved to Britain to become the new Bank of England governor, having previously served the same role with the Bank of Canada for five years.
Defenders of Carney say these photos are simply being used by Conservatives as a political game. However, the original account that posted them was anonymous and bears a small following.
“This is another example of how Pierre Poilievre and (adviser) Jenni Byrne have always played politics and it shows again how terrified they are to fight Mark Carney,” a source close to Carney told the Toronto Sun on Friday.
“As a child, the woman you reference went to the same high school as Mr. Carney’s wife’s sister. While they have bumped into each other in public settings (including the 11-year-old photos you’ve sent), they are not friends.”
A source within the Conservatives told the Toronto Sun that no one in the party was responsible for posting the photos to social media.
While Maxwell’s role in Epstein’s sex trafficking ring may not have been publicly known at the time the photos were taken, what was known was that her partner had already served a 13-month prison sentence from 2008 to 2009 for sexual offences against children.
According to a statement from the New York District Attorney’s Office, Maxwell, “assisted, facilitated and participated in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom and ultimately abuse victims known to Maxwell and Epstein to be under the age of 18.”
Her involvement in the sex trafficking ring began at least as early as “1994, up to and including in or about 2004,” it stated.
The full client list of who partook in Epstein and Maxwell’s heinous crimes has yet to be released.
However, what has been substantiated by court documents are accusations against Prince Andrew, someone Carney has also brushed elbows with.
According to a Daily Mail article from 2014, Prince Andrew once footed the bill for a “lavish dinner at Buckingham Palace for some of the City of London’s richest bankers — out of his own pocket,” of which Carney was also in attendance.
“Mr. Carney was invited by the Duke of York, who brought together figures from a range of financial institutions, such as banks and hedge funds,” said a Bank of England spokesperson at the time.
Buckingham Palace announced that Andrew would be suspended from his public duties “for the foreseeable future” in 2018 as an expression of sympathy from Queen Elizabeth for the victims of Epstein and Maxwell.
Carney’s campaign has denied any illicit involvement with Maxwell outside of being photographed with her.
The campaign has maintained she was simply a friend of Carney’s sister-in-law and that the two were not acquaintances beyond attending the same event together.