Whatever else happens, Liberal Leader Mark Carney will go down in the history books as the first Canadian prime minister to come to power without having ever won elected office.
That historical footnote underscores two realities. First, the Liberal Party, after nine years in government, had to reach beyond its ranks to find a leader. The two former ministers who did make a run for the top job, Chrystia Freeland and Karina Gould, failed to crack double digits in support. Mr. Carney’s impressive margin of victory, with 85.9 per cent of the vote – albeit on abysmally low turnout among registered Liberals – highlights the breathtaking speed of the party’s attempt to pivot away from the record of its nine years in office.
The other reality is that Mr. Carney must execute a pivot of his own, and quickly, by moving from a campaign aimed at courting tens of thousands of Liberal partisans to one that will have to win over tens of millions of voters nationwide. An immediate election is needed (more on that tomorrow).
The unequivocal backing that Mr. Carney has secured should allow him to break with the Liberals’ recent record: on policy, yes, but most particularly in how the party campaigns. He has yet to show he is willing to make that break.
Each successive election since 2015 has seen the Liberals slice and dice the electorate, eking out victories with a declining share of the vote. In 2015, the party garnered 6.9 million votes, securing a solid majority of seats. The party received just over six million votes in 2019, slipping to minority status. In 2021, just over 5.5 million Canadians voted for the Liberals, well behind the Conservatives. The Liberals boosted their seat count, even though they received just 32.6 per cent of votes.
In the past, the Liberals have looked at those results and marvelled at the efficiency of their vote, as if failing to win over more than two-thirds of the country was a clever stratagem to be celebrated. That slicing and dicing of the electorate was driven in part by the party’s tight embrace of divisive wedge issues: abortion, guns and, in 2021, vaccine mandates.
The electoral equation of division worked in 2019 and 2021, but would be a dire mistake in 2025. Donald Trump’s annexationist rhetoric and crude threats have created a groundswell of unity; that should not be frittered away.
With his decisive win, Mr. Carney has it in his power to compel the Liberals to aim higher, to campaign for a better Canada, in a better way. As this space said last week, the change in leadership should only be the start of renewal in the Liberal Party. Mr. Carney needs new advisers who will be willing and able to help him in promoting a message of unity.
There should be no part of the country that is not seen as Liberal territory, just as no region should be written off by the Conservatives. Mr. Carney needs to make his case to all Canadians, not just to those predisposed to want to hear it. That means, for instance, taking the tariffs levied by China against Saskatchewan canola farmers just as seriously as tariffs levied against Ontario’s auto industry by the United States.
Good policy and good politics need not be strangers. In his victory speech on Sunday, Mr. Carney talked about his ambition for Canada to become an “energy superpower in both clean and conventional energy.” That ambition is a promising start to a move away from the Trudeau government’s disdain for the oil and gas sector, a shift that could reduce Canada’s dependence on the United States – and win the Liberal Party a hearing among Prairie voters.
In his Sunday speech, Mr. Carney also talked about the need to remain “united and strong,” saying that “when it comes to Canada, we’re all on the same team.” But just a few moments before, he had all but called his Conservative rival a traitor: “Pierre Poilievre’s plan will leave us divided and ready to be conquered, because a person who worships at the altar of Donald Trump will kneel before him, not stand up to him.”
For his part, Mr. Poilievre on Monday said that Mr. Carney would also betray Canada. “And we know Carney will sell out Canada for his personal profit,” the Conservative Leader said.
Both men are wrong to impugn the others’ patriotism. The question is not whether they would stand up for Canada, but how they propose to build up this country to adapt to a suddenly inhospitable economic and political climate.
If Mr. Carney aims to be more than a footnote in an answer to a historical trivia question, he will focus on the only issue that matters in the upcoming campaign: how he intends to ensure that Canada remains strong and free.