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Time just called Mark Carney “the George Clooney of finance”

It must be the eyebrows

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Time just called Mark Carney "the George Clooney of finance"
Photo by Kamara Morozuk/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Time magazine just released its annual 100 list, a collection of the year’s biggest movers, shakers and headline makers. The bad news is that only one Canadian made the list. (Hey, Time, ever hear of a little global phenomenon called Heated Rivalry?) The good news: that Canadian is our prime minister.

Just a year ago, Mark Carney was in the midst of election season, orchestrating a stunning comeback for the Liberals, who were decidedly in the toilet after Justin Trudeau’s exit. Today, he’s the head of a majority government and a leader in the resistance against Trump-era totalitarianism. His speech at Davos even drew comparisons to Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain.

Related: Prime Minister Mark Carney secured his Liberal majority

But enough with the substantive achievements, let’s talk about those eyebrows—because Time certainly didn’t shy away from them, describing our federal leader as “the George Clooney of finance.” In fairness, this nickname has been around for a while, dating back to when Carney took over as the governor of the Bank of England and a British journalist tried to throw him off script by asking, “What does it feel like to be the George Clooney of global finance?” (To which Carney quipped back, “It’s a low bar.”)

Related: Mark Carney is temporarily suspending the fuel excise tax

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It turns out that pretty much all of England was crushing on Canada’s future leader at the time. But what’s really funny is that, just this week, the actual George Clooney made headlines for his beef with the Trump administration: after the actor spoke out against the government’s heinous threats against Iran, a POTUS representative responded that the real war crimes are Clooney’s “awful movies and terrible acting ability.”

Ah, just another day in Washington. But it does sound like maybe Clooney wants to be the Mark Carney of Hollywood.

Courtney Shea is a freelance journalist in Toronto. She started her career as an intern at Toronto Life and continues to contribute frequently to the publication, including her 2022 National Magazine Award–winning feature, “The Death Cheaters,” her regular Q&As and her recent investigation into whether Taylor Swift hung out at a Toronto dive bar (she did not). Courtney was a producer and writer on the 2022 documentary The Talented Mr. Rosenberg, based on her 2014 Toronto Life magazine feature “The Yorkville Swindler.”

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