Mark Carney, the former central banker who sought elected office for the first time, led the Liberals to victory Monday in an election that was upended by Donald Trump’s trade war and musings about annexation amid persistent concerns over the spiralling cost of living.
Canadians gave the Liberal Party its fourth mandate since 2015 but the race against the Conservatives was much tighter than polls predicted. At 4:15 a.m., the Liberals were leading or elected in 168 ridings and the Conservatives in 144. The Bloc Québécois had 23 seats, the New Democrats seven and the Greens one. The Liberals had a slim lead in the popular vote at 43.2 per cent to the Conservatives’ 41.7.
The Conservatives’ support was the highest in almost 40 years, but party leader Pierre Poilievre is projected to lose his Carleton seat to Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy. Elections Canada has paused counting of special ballots until 9:30 a.m., with a handful of ridings still too close to call.
Like in 2019 and 2021, the Liberals will need to govern with the support of one of the opposition parties, which brings continued instability as the threat of defeat hangs over the government.
Still, the win is a remarkable achievement for Mr. Carney, a political rookie who promised to stand up to the U.S. President and change Canada’s economic direction. He easily won his Ottawa-area riding of Nepean.
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In his speech to supporters at TD Place Arena in Ottawa, Mr. Carney said early Tuesday morning that the U.S. is interested in Canada’s land, resources and water, but the country is now over what he called the “American betrayal.”
The days and months ahead will be challenging and will call for some sacrifices, Mr. Carney said, but workers and businesses will be supported.
He said his government will build one economy for the country, not 13, referring to the provinces and territories. The Liberal government is committed to free trade within the country by Canada Day, he said. “This is Canada, and we decide what happens here.”
He added that the country must take steps such as strengthening relationships with reliable partners in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.
When he sits down with Mr. Trump, he said, “it will be to discuss the future economic and security relationship between two sovereign nations.”
Mr. Carney said he intends to govern for all Canadians after what he called a “most consequential election.”
“Let’s put an end to the division and anger of the past,” he said. “We are all Canadian and my government will work for and with everyone.”
The 60-year-old said that over his long career, he has made many mistakes and he will make more. “But I commit to admitting them openly, to correcting them quickly, and always learning from them.”
Pierre Poilievre speaks to his supporters after the Conservatives' election loss.Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
As of Tuesday morning, Mr. Poilievre is projected to lose to Mr. Fanjoy in his Ottawa-area riding of Carleton. With 264 out of 266 polls reporting, Mr. Fanjoy won 50.6 per cent of the vote to Mr. Poilievre’s 46.1 per cent.
Mr. Poilievre, speaking to supporters, said Canadians “have opted for a razor-thin minority government” and congratulated Mr. Carney on his victory.
He said he plans to do his job to hold the government to account “but tonight, we come together as Canadians.”
Mr. Poilievre said he wanted to congratulate people “from all political backgrounds for participating in the democratic process.”
The Conservative Leader said his party will “always put Canada first as we stare down tariffs and other irresponsible threats from President Trump” and Conservatives ”will work with the Prime Minister and all parties with the common goal of defending Canada’s interests and getting a new trade deal that puts these tariffs behind us while protecting our sovereignty and the Canadian people.”
Mr. Poilievre sought to console Conservatives Monday night after the party’s double-digit lead in the polls disappeared in recent months. “We have much to celebrate tonight. We’ve gained well over 20 seats.”
He said the Conservatives received their biggest share of the popular vote since their predecessor party, the Progressive Conservatives, in 1988.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh addresses supporters in Burnaby, B.C.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who was trailing in polls in his B.C. riding of Burnaby Central, told a postelection gathering that he would be resigning as leader as soon as an interim party chief is appointed.
He defended his tenure in Parliament and the work that the NDP accomplished. “I know that people are concretely better off because of our work over the last eight years, and no election results will ever diminish that.”
The federal election is a big turnaround from only three months ago when Mr. Poilievre’s populist Conservatives were poised to win a massive majority, in large part because of voter fatigue with Justin Trudeau’s minority government.
Facing a party revolt, Mr. Trudeau stepped aside in January and the Liberals were quick to embrace Mr. Carney, a technocrat and political rookie with economic expertise in handling the 2008 financial crisis and Brexit.
Mr. Carney’s ascension as Liberal Leader and Mr. Trump’s tariffs and 51st-state threats led to a Liberal resurgence that loomed over the 37-day campaign, turning the contest into a two-way race with the Conservatives.
Having secured a fresh mandate, the task ahead for Mr. Carney is to open immediate negotiations with the Trump administration to avoid an all-out trade war. He’ll also need to recall Parliament to pass a new budget and legislation to tear down interprovincial trade barriers to become economically less dependent on the United States.
At dissolution, the Liberals held 153 seats to 120 for the Conservatives and 33 for the Bloc Québécois, while the NDP stood at 25 and the Greens at 2. There were four Independents and one vacancy.
Seniors Liberals such as Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Public Safety Minister David McGuinty won re-election and will likely continue to play key roles in the Liberal government.
The 45th federal election campaign was initially supposed to be a cakewalk for Mr. Poilievre. For nearly two years, he honed his partisan attacks on the unpopular Mr. Trudeau, capitalizing on anger at the consumer carbon levy, housing affordability, mass immigration and the cost of living.
Poll after poll showed the Conservatives leading by double-digit figures. Then in early January, Mr. Trudeau bowed out, grudgingly accepting the Liberal revolt against his more than nine-year leadership of the country.
With the three main opposition parties committed to bringing down the minority government, Mr. Trudeau prorogued Parliament to allow the Liberal Party to hold a leadership contest.
The Liberals saw their only hope of victory in Mr. Carney, who previously headed the central banks in Canada and Britain. He entered the race backed by most cabinet ministers, MPs and the party establishment. The only other main contenders were ex-finance minister Chrystia Freeland and Karina Gould, a mid-level former minister.
Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberals retained power in the federal election on Monday (April 28), but fell short of the majority government he had wanted to help him negotiate tariffs with U.S. President Donald Trump. Ryan Chang reports.
Reuters
Then, in a stroke of luck for the Liberals, Mr. Trump upset the Canadian political landscape with pledges to impose stiff tariffs on Canada and talk of making the country the 51st state. He belittled Mr. Trudeau, whom he never liked, referring to him as governor.
Many outraged Canadians stopped travel to the U.S., put their American vacation homes up for sale and even booed the American anthem at hockey games.
Mr. Trump’s chaotic talk of annexation and economic war was devastating for the Conservatives. The party’s 27-percentage-point lead vanished and the Carney-led Liberals leapt ahead by as much as 8 percentage points. Even more worrisome, polls showed that Mr. Carney was considered by a wide margin to be the best leader to manage Mr. Trump.
Money and endorsements flowed into Mr. Carney’s leadership campaign. Rank and file Liberals voted overwhelmingly on March 9 for Mr. Carney to take the helm of the party. Days later, he called a 36-day federal campaign, with the election set for April 28.
“What it shows is that when Pierre Poilievre was high in the polls, it wasn’t about him. It was about a repudiation of the Liberals and dislike of Justin Trudeau,” said pollster Nik Nanos, chief data scientist at Nanos Research.
What was all the more remarkable is that Mr. Carney had never held elective office. He wasn’t used to the cut and thrust of politics or the glad-handing that comes with the territory. He bristled when reporters questioned him about his wealth or details of his stock holdings in Brookfield Asset Management, the $1-trillion investment company he chaired until he resigned to seek the Liberal leadership.
He presented himself as the serious-minded outsider who managed the 2008 global financial crisis as Bank of Canada governor and Brexit when he headed the Bank of England.
Mr. Carney shifted the party to the centre and appeared to neutralize the Conservative attacks by adopting similar policies. He ended the unpopular consumer carbon levy, cancelled an increase in capital-gains taxes, promised to build energy projects, boost defence spending and cut taxes for the middle class.
He capitalized on Mr. Trump’s tariffs and as Prime Minister responded in kind to the U.S. imposition of levies on foreign auto imports. He received favourable coverage when the two leaders held a telephone call on March 28. Mr. Trump described the discussion as “extremely productive” and both leaders agreed that Canada and the U.S. would hold comprehensive talks after the election.
In the final week of the campaign, however, Mr. Carney was caught out for being less than forthright about that phone call. He had left the impression that Mr. Trump had respected Canada’s sovereignty and later acknowledged that the President did refer to Canada as a 51st state. He told reporters at the time that the President respected Canada’s sovereignty both in his private and public comments.
It took some of the shine off Mr. Carney, although Mr. Nanos said voters were already beginning to cool to the Liberal Leader, as numerous polls suggested a tightening of the race.
Mr. Nanos’s last poll, on Sunday, had the Liberals at 42.6 per cent compared with 39.9 per cent for the Conservatives and the NDP at 7.8 per cent. The Nanos random survey of 1,256 Canadians is accurate within 2.8 per cent, plus or minus, 19 times out of 20.
Mr. Carney’s government will be confronted with an ever-present threat from Mr. Trump. He has also imposed 25-per-cent tariffs on aluminum and steel. On April 3, he imposed tariffs of 25 per cent on imported automobiles and light trucks and vowed 25-per-cent tariffs on some auto parts starting May 3. Mr. Trump has suggested he might hit pause again on autos.
Mr. Carney is committed to negotiations on a new economic and security arrangement with the Trump administration. It remains to be seen whether these talks result in a one-on-one trade deal with the U.S., another trilateral deal involving Mexico or any changes to the NORAD defence agreement between Canada and the U.S.
The Trump impact on the election seemed to unsettle Mr. Poilievre, the 45-year-old populist who has sat in Parliament since 2004. In the early days of the campaign, it appeared that he and his team didn’t know how to respond to Mr. Trump.
For a time, he kept up his Trump-like name-calling tactics, referring to the Liberal Leader as Carbon Tax Carney or Sneaky Carney. Against the advice of party insiders, he kept talking about the consumer carbon levy and how Mr. Carney was a carbon copy of Mr. Trudeau. And while he criticized Mr. Trump, he blamed Liberal economic mismanagement for making the country vulnerable to a U.S. trade war.
In the Nanos poll, respondents were asked: “For those parties you would consider voting for federally, could you please rank your top two current local preferences?” The full methodology for all surveys can be found at: tgam.ca/polls.