Presumptive Liberal leadership candidate Mark Carney’s camp says the former central banker is not friends with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, despite chummy photos of the two that have recirculated in recent days.
Carney’s campaign has denied any 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.
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.”
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year jail sentence for her role in recruiting, 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.
Maxwell’s full role in Epstein’s sex trafficking ring was not publicly known at the time the photos were taken. It was known, however, that Epstein had 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.
A source within the Conservatives told the Toronto Sun that no one in the party was responsible for posting the photos to social media.
As more Liberal candidate ministers announce they won’t run in the next Liberal leadership race, the list of potential candidates narrows.
The Liberal Party of Canada announced last week that the race to elect the party’s next leader and Canada’s next Prime Minister will conclude on Mar. 9, 2025. The race began after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he would resign as party leader and PM pending the leadership race results.
Liberal Labour Minister Steven Mackinnon announced Sunday that he won’t be in the running to replace Trudeau as party leader.
“This is no ordinary time. The Liberal Party of Canada is at a crossroads, and must make important decisions very quickly,” he said in a statement released to X. “The leadership race requires diverse, experienced and pragmatic voices, both in French and in English. I believe that I could be such a voice. Unfortunately, the time available does not allow me to mount the kind of campaign that I would want to run.”
He said he would run again in the Gatineau riding in the next election but would focus his “full attention” on his role as labour minister until then.
Transportation Minister Anita Anand announced to social media on Saturday that she will not be running in the race either. She said she will not seek re-election in the imminent general election and will continue to work as a Liberal MP and cabinet minister until an election is called.
“After the 2019 election, I took a leave of absence, intending to return one day to academia. The joy and fulfillment that I take in our current work — collaborating with the Prime Minister, my Cabinet colleagues, our caucus and the broader team — delayed this decision,” she said in a statement released on X.
Before seeking public office, Anand was a lawyer and law professor for twenty years and worked in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto.
“Now that the Prime Minister has made his decision to move to his next chapter, I have determined the time is right for me to do the same and to return to my prior professional life of teaching, research and public policy analyses,” Anand said.
Former B.C. Premier Christy Clark announced that she is seriously considering a bid for LPC leadership.
“(Poilievre’s) the most divisive politician we’ve seen in years and I felt it was my duty as a Canadian to stop him in his tracks,” she said in a post on Friday. “I’m thinking carefully about running because he still needs to be stopped. But if we want to do that, our party has to accept change.”
Clark said she was considering a leadership bid if Trudeau resigned in October, amid the Liberals’ ongoing struggles in the polls and mounting pressure from the caucus to oust Trudeau.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and the recently appointed Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc have bowed out from the race. They both vowed to instead focus on their cabinet roles ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on day one of his administration.
Trump is set to be inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2025.
Only two candidates have officially announced their bid for leadership so far. Chandra Arya, a Liberal MP who opposed a foreign agent registry which would force agents of foreign governments to register their activities in Canada – and former MP Frank Baylis.
Baylis and his medical supplies company, Baylis Medical, have been subject to ethics committee investigations after Conservatives noted the former Liberal MP’s company had received millions of taxpayer handouts from the Liberal government.
Government House leader Karina Gould told reporters on Sunday that she was also “seriously considering” running in the Liberal Leadership race.
According to the National Post, François-Philippe Champagne is also considering a run for leadership, though he said he would have to see the rules of the race before announcing his bid.
Champagne has been the subject of a Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) whistleblower’s allegations that he lied during committee meetings, knowing about the mishandling of funds in the green-tech fund.
Champagne was also set to take over as the Finance Minister following the resignation of former minister Chrystia Freeland last month, though he rejected the appointment.
Both Freeland and the former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney are expected to announce their run for party leadership, though both have remained mum on the race so far.