Canada has voted, and the Donald Trump assisted fall of Poilievre’s Conservatives from front-runners to watching the Liberals attain a fourth-straight win.
From the CBC:
Mark Carney achieved what seemed like an impossible feat just a few months ago, leading the Liberals to another victory after an election that was shaped by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and threats of annexation.
The CBC Decision Desk is projecting a fourth Liberal term — a rarity in Canadian politics — but it’s too close to tell whether it will be majority or minority government.
Carney, a central banker who only jumped into Canadian politics in January, successfully reversed his party’s fortunes after polling earlier this year suggested defeat was all but guaranteed. But the race against the Conservatives is shaping up to be closer than many polls predicted.
The Liberal share of the vote hovers just above 43 per cent and, as of 3 a.m. ET, are leading or projected elected in about 167 seats, short of the 172 needed to form a majority government.
The Conservative vote share stands at about 42 per cent, which is an extremely strong showing for the party but did not translate into the most seats
While some ridings are too close to call still, results suggest Bloc Québécois and NDP support faltered. If the results hold, New Democrats will lose both party status and its leader’s seat in one night.
A minority government would be short of the “strong mandate” Carney campaigned for and would mean his party will need the support of one of the opposition parties to pass legislation and stave off an another election in the near future.
Still, a minority government would have felt miraculous at the end of last year. Canadians had soured on former prime minister Justin Trudeau and polls suggested Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would snap up the majority government he’d long been waiting for.
Then came Trudeau’s early January resignation, U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and persistent barbs about making Canada the 51st state — flipping the political script.
With Trump announcing, pausing, then re-announcing devastating tariffs on Canadian goods, the campaign largely became a race about who is best to steer Canada through global uncertainty.
Trudeauism without Trudeau.Report
That remains to be seen. Carney is far more of a technocrat than Trudeau was/is and doesn’t have the burden of that last name either. Canada’s liberals have, in the past, been very capable economic stewards (and, to be fair, so have Canada’s Tories though that was before their destruction and resurrection in their current context).Report