Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Could this photo cost Mark Carney victory in Canada’s election?

Canadian prime minister and Liberal Party leader Mark Carney (Getty images)

Caryma Sa’d has captured the definitive image of the Canadian federal election. Over the weekend, the independent journalist posted a photograph from an event in Brantford, Ontario for Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor who has replaced Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader and prime minister. The pic shows an older gentleman appearing to give two middle fingers to the camera while similarly-aged Carney enthusiasts around him laugh. In isolation, just another snapshot from an ill-tempered election. In the context of this poll, a readymade icon of everything Carney’s critics say he stands for and everything his Conservative opponent Pierre Poilievre is against.

The two-finger salute has already become a meme. Legal scholar Yuan Yi Zhu tweeted the image with the caption: ‘The last thing you see before you are priced out of a house, forever.’

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