Mark Carney’s wife, Diana Fox Carney, wasn’t as much of a fixture on the campaign trail as Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre’s wife Anaida Poilievre, but she did appear on stage in some rallies and was known to go door-knocking in Carney’s riding of Nepean.
She was also there to celebrate with her husband when he won the Liberal leadership race, and earlier this week when he secured a minority government in the April 28 election.
As Fox Carney enters the public eye following her husband’s electoral victory, here’s a closer look at the wife of Canada’s new prime minister.
Who is Diana Fox Carney?
Fox Carney, a British-Canadian economist and environmentalist, hails from a prosperous pig farming family in rural England. Born in 1965, she attended Oxford High School for Girls before attending Marlborough College, a private boarding school in Wiltshire that was later attended by Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales.
She went on to attend Oxford University and graduated in 1987 with a master’s of arts degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. She earned a master’s of arts degree in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania in 1988 before returning to Oxford to earn a master’s of science degree in agricultural economics in 1992.
It was there that she met her future husband after she caught his eye while she was playing hockey for the university’s Ice Hockey Club.
Fox Carney was “known for her ability to skate rings around her opponents and move effortlessly through the opposing defensive line,” according to the university’s alumni website.
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The pair married in 1994 and went on to have four daughters: Amelia, Cleo, Sasha, and Tess.
Amelia reportedly graduated from the University of Edinburgh last year and Cleo is currently studying at Harvard University. Sasha Carney, who uses they/them pronouns, graduated from Yale University in 2023, while Tess, who has largely stayed out of the public spotlight, is thought to be a student.
The Carney family has resided in Ottawa’s Rockcliffe Park neighbourhood since 2020.
Fox Carney’s Career
Fox Carney has dual citizenship in the United Kingdom and Canada and has worked in both countries at various think tanks that focus on climate policy. It was in Zanzibar, off the east coast of Africa where she started her career doing agricultural research for the U.K. government, according to her bio on the Balsillie School of International Affairs, where she was a fellow.
She specializes in developing nations and previously served as the vice-president of Canada 2020, a Liberal party-aligned think tank that focuses on climate, energy, and social mobility issues.
Fox Carney held the position of executive director of Pi Capital, an organization that “convenes extraordinary events with the world’s most sought-after thinkers” in London, England, according to a description on Canada 2020.
She assumed the role of senior adviser in 2021 at Eurasia Group, a firm specializing in risk research and consulting. Besides advising clients, Fox Carney plays a “prominent role at Eurasia Group’s events” and serves as a “moderator and expert,” according to the group’s website.
She has also been a trustee for the Friends of the Royal Academy, which champions art, and served as an ambassador for the World Wildlife Foundation, according to her biography from Oxford hockey.
Fox Carney has authored two books on the roles of public and private sectors in the provision of agricultural services and the management of natural resources.
In Her Own Words
In her first-person contributor biography from her time at Pi Capital, Fox Carney said she has spent her working career focused on supporting livelihoods, climate policy and attempting to “identify paths towards a more inclusive economic system.”
Over the course of that career she says she has “tried to identify other ways to make the world a better place” which she balanced with charity work by serving on the board of Save the Children and sustainable energy charity Ashden, and being a mother of four.
Despite her varied career, she described motherhood as the most challenging job of all.
“I endeavour to raise my four daughters so that they are full of integrity, kindness and inner strength,” she wrote. “That is certainly the hardest of all my jobs.”
