Canada PM Carney accused of plagiarism in PhD thesis

Canadian prime minister Mark Carney has been accused of plagiarising parts of his Oxford University thesis on the economy just weeks before voters will decide whether or not he should continue in his role.

- MARY PAPENFUSS

The accusations were reportedly made by three academics chosen to assess the Liberal Party leader’s work for his doctorate by the conservative newspaper the National Post. The three academics identified 10 “potential” incidents of plagiarism, according to the paper.

One of them, Geoffrey Sigalet, a member of the University of British Columbia’s student disciplinary committee, said he felt Mr Carney had inappropriately used others’ work in his 300page PhD thesis titled “The Dynamic Advantage of Competition”.

“He’s just directly repeating without quotations. That’s what we call plagiarism,” Mr Sigalet told the Post.

One of the other three academics agreed with Mr Sigalet but did not want his name revealed in the article because he was fearful he could be sued by Mr Carney.