Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement on Monday that he will leave office could clear the way for a less crypto-resistant government there, although provincial governments have a leading role in determining the future of Canadian digital assets. Canada.
“I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party elects its new leader,” Trudeau said at a news conference, citing “internal battles” roiling his government. “I can’t be the one to carry the liberal standard into the next election.”
Trudeau said he will leave his 11-year position as leader of the Liberal Party and the role of prime minister he has held since 2015. Trudeau’s critics in the crypto community denounced government sanctions on digital wallets during the 2022 Freedom Convoy protests.
Read more: Canada sanctions 34 crypto wallets linked to truckers’ ‘Freedom Convoy’
The government’s freezing of crypto accounts reverberated beyond Canada and became a rallying cry among US Republican lawmakers during the 2024 election. Those politicians used that situation as a prime example of the dangers of allowing digital currencies. central bank (CBDC) that could lead to government intrusions into crypto transactions.
Canada’s general election is fast approaching in October, and polls show the Conservative Party’s Pierre Poilievre has a big lead. It has also gained cross-border appeal from many of US President-elect Donald Trump’s supporters.
Poilievre had been a strong supporter of digital assets in the past, but more recently has remained relatively quiet on the topic.
In Canada, however, securities are a provincial matter, and since there is no national securities regulator like the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States, the influence that the next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada (and therefore both Prime Minister) or Poilievre is limited. .
Instead, the Canadian Securities Administration (CSA), a regulatory body made up of provincial regulators, will have more say over the future of cryptocurrencies.
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A possible candidate to replace Trudeau is Mark Carney (as the race has not yet started, he has not formally announced his candidacy), recruited at the Bank of Canada, Carney was the former governor of the Bank of England, where he had a There is much to be said. say about cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.
“Tokens at the heart of programmable networks will have to remain just that, symbolic value,” he said during a 2021 conference at the Bank for International Settlements.
Carney also said that highly regulated stablecoins are the only way they could succeed and, if strictly regulated, “what would differentiate them from CBDCs?”
