One of the predictable things the leader of the winning party in a federal election will say in their victory speech is that they will work for all Canadians regardless of how they voted.
Stephen Harper made that promise in 2011 after winning his long-sought Conservative majority: “For our part, we are intensely aware that we are and we must be the government of all Canadians, including those who did not vote for us.”
So did Justin Trudeau, in 2015. “You want a Prime Minister who … takes every single opportunity to bring us together.”
But both Mr. Harper and Mr. Trudeau chose to ignore that promise of unity, instead opting for wedge issues designed to reinforce support for their party, dividing the electorate rather than bringing them together.
On Monday night, it was Mark Carney’s turn to give a nod to magnanimity and humility. “My message to every Canadian is this,” he said: “no matter where you live, no matter what language you speak, no matter how you voted, I will always do my best to represent everyone who calls Canada home.”
Mr. Carney needs to deliver his best, because if there is one message to be taken from Monday’s election results, it is that Canadians are fed up with the cultivation of political division as a means of getting and keeping power.
Voters roundly rejected third parties on Monday. The NDP seat count fell to seven, with the party garnering its lowest share ever of the popular vote. The Bloc Québécois was reduced to 23 seats from 33. The Green Party has just one seat.
Canadians instead turned to the Liberals and Conservatives, but they made clear their issues with both.
The Liberals increased their seat count but are on track to once again fall short of a majority. While polls showed that most Canadians saw Mr. Carney as the best leader to take on U.S. President Donald Trump, voters were still reluctant to go all in on a party that is mostly a warmed-over version of the Trudeau years.
The Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre also improved their standing in Parliament, gaining at least 24 seats. But the leader who got them there, and who embodied the party’s hard-edged and hard-right-adjacent populism, lost the riding he’d held for more than 20 years.
The message was clear for the Conservatives: name-calling and simplistic slogans will be rejected in a world where the United States attacks Canada’s economy and sovereignty.
Canadians have indicated they want a stop to unserious and divisive politics by cautiously putting their faith in the two parties that jockeyed for the centre.
To honour that, Mr. Carney will need to govern with a muscular centrism that breaks from the Liberal status quo and brings people together around the idea of strengthening this country’s economy and defences.
To keep his promise to represent all Canadians, he will have to address the West’s concerns about the consequences of a fourth consecutive Liberal mandate, starting by giving the region strong representation in cabinet. It also means adopting some of the Conservatives’ better ideas, such as leaner government and clearing away regulatory obstacles that limit investment in Canada, particularly new pipelines.
With the third parties so clearly rejected by voters, the Liberals should work with the Conservatives to get things done in Parliament. A revival of the parliamentary alliance with the NDP might work numerically for the Liberals, but the Carney government would be ignoring the message from voters.
The Conservatives also need to play ball. The Official Opposition can fulfill its role without gotcha politics, and without voting robotically against every government initiative.
Mr. Carney and Mr. Poilievre seem to have understood: they made fittingly conciliatory remarks in their election night speeches.
Now, those words must be put to work: the Liberals and Tories should start by ensuring that Ottawa sweeps any federal obstacles to interprovincial free trade by Canada Day. That is a fitting deadline indeed for a new show of national solidarity, and would be proof that Canada’s political leaders are able to rise to the big challenges facing this country.
Mr. Carney has his mandate now. We wish him godspeed in bolstering Canada’s economy, rebuilding our defences and restoring national unity. The future of all Canadians – including the millions who did not vote for the Liberals – depend on him succeeding.