The Liberal Party won Canada’s national election on Monday, according to Canada’s federal elections agency. Mark Carney is now set to assume a full mandate as prime minister, leading Canada at a time of unprecedented trade tensions with the United States and a looming review of the USMCA trade agreement scheduled for next year. Carney’s main rival, the Conservative Party’s Pierre Poilievre, who had led polls by more than 20 percentage points in January, conceded the Liberals’ victory and also lost his seat in Parliament. What ultimately decided the race for Carney and the Liberal Party? What policies will Carney prioritize as prime minister, especially regarding trade and international relations? What is the significance of the Liberal Party’s win in the context of global politics?
Alex Marland, professor and Jarislowsky Chair in Trust and Political Leadership at Acadia University in Nova Scotia: “Mark Carney and the Liberal Party of Canada won the election largely due to widespread apprehension among many voters of President Trump. They were anxious about Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric of turning Canada into an American state, along with instigating a trade war and erratic use of tariffs. Carney’s reputation as a calm, experienced central banker was an antidote. Many Liberal voters also wanted to prevent Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre from becoming prime minister, whose populism and sloganeering drew comparisons with Trump. Even some Bloc Québécois supporters temporarily set aside their nationalist priorities to stop American imperialism. Much of the New Democratic Party’s vote similarly went to the Liberals, though some drifted to the Conservatives, who tried to frame the ballot question as ‘change.’ Carney constantly kept the threat of Trump in the public eye, even pausing campaigning three times to return to Ottawa for meetings. Visually, Carney was branded as a symbol of Canadian nationalism, frequently wearing a Team Canada hockey jersey against a backdrop of Canadian flags. Going forward, in the short-term Prime Minister Carney will likely prioritize trade, both by negotiating with his American counterpart and working with Canada’s provincial premiers to reduce inter-provincial trade barriers. This election holds global significance because it demonstrates how, under the right conditions, an unpopular political party can rapidly regain momentum and retain power with a change of leadership. It also shows that President Trump’s political influence and media presence can disrupt an election beyond the borders of the United States.”
Carlo Dade, director of international policy at the University of Calgary School of Public Policy and former director of the Trade & Investment Centre at the Canada West Foundation: “The Liberal Party win this week was a loss not just for the Conservatives, but for multi-party parliamentary democracy in Canada. The collapse, at the federal level, of the further left-of-center New Democrat Party, Green Party and the Quebec separatist Bloc Québécois is as big a story as the Liberal Party’s surprise victory. Of more immediate concern for governing the country and its foreign relations, the Liberals were not able to seize a majority, which means an alliance with other parties is needed. Given the bitterness of the campaign and sharp policy divides on key issues such as energy development, it is difficult to see an alliance between the Liberals and Conservatives. This means the Liberals will be forced to once again look for support from one of the other parties. Given the greater collapse of the NDP, which dropped from 24 to five to seven seats, this means that the Liberals will be forced to turn to the Bloc Québécois. The Bloc had made continued support for Canada’s supply-managed dairy system a demand for supporting the past Liberal government. Increased access to Canada’s dairy market is also target number one for the Trump administration in upcoming trade negotiations on the North American agreement. How this circle gets squared will be neither easy nor pleasant for the rest of Canada. Conversations on conventional energy exports—or any issue not of importance to Quebec—will also get even more contentious, as hard as this is to believe. If the goal of the election was to unite Canada in the face of global challenges, the results may have done the opposite. Unless the Carney government can find a way to work with the Conservative Party, which saw its vote total also increase, then the view from western Canada—and just under half the population that voted for the Conservatives—is that the country will be further weakened in dealing with the United States and diminished on the world stage.”
Grace Jaramillo, professor at the University of British Columbia: “There is no question that Mark Carney’s victory is a direct result of President Trump’s trade war against Canada and the existential risk the threat that U.S. annexation represents to an overwhelming majority of Canadians. Just a couple of months ago, the Conservative Party was set up to win elections against an increasingly unpopular Justin Trudeau. The rallying cry, until last December, was a call for a change after 10 years of a Liberal government that could not fight rising inflation and housing affordability. However, the Trump presidency and his insistence in overhauling the relationship with one of the United States’ closest allies and a trustable neighbor changed everything. Suddenly, a Conservative leader was seen as too close to Trump’s populist policies and incapable of standing up to the disrespectful call for Canada becoming the 51st U.S. state. Carney’s victory sends a potent message to formerly close U.S. allies across the Atlantic: that citizens are democratically choosing to oppose coercive trade politics. In his victory speech, Carney announced that the close relationship with the United States is over, and he has stated that he will prioritize the diversification of trade and international relations, especially with the European Union and the United Kingdom, in a quest to maintain a rules-based international order. It does not mean that he will not negotiate with the United States, but Carney will try his best to detach Canada from its historical dependence on U.S. markets.”
Jean Daudelin, associate professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa: “Mark Carney won because many saw him as the best candidate to handle the Trump administration’s tariff war and his threatening signals about Canada’s sovereignty. His experience and obvious comfort in ‘globalist’ circles, which shone in visits to France and the United Kingdom, contrast starkly with Poilievre’s narrow domestic focus and utter lack of international experience or interest. This is likely to matter because, notwithstanding both parties’ insistence on the elimination of inter-provincial barriers for the economic future of the country, much of the game will really be played out in negotiations with Washington and in desperate attempts to diversify the country’s trade and investment relations away from the United States. From that standpoint, the virtual absence of references to the world beyond the Anglosphere in the Conservative platform and campaign were certainly dismaying. However, while Carney’s Liberals will clearly push beyond it to Europe as a whole, one only finds cursory references to free trade discussions with Mercosur and ASEAN in their formal plans. Perhaps most concerning, neither platform mentions CUSMA or Mexico, which is Canada’s third largest trade partner and should be seen as a potential ally in the trilateral negotiations that will have to take place soon. Now, Carney announces plans for a new foreign policy; he will be hosting the next G7 Summit in June and will undoubtedly be in South Africa in November for the G20. The world clearly matters to Carney, and Latin America may even reappear on Canada’s radar screen under his watch.”
Malcolm Fairbrother, professor of sociology at Uppsala University and the Institute for Futures Studies in Sweden: “Canadians have voted for a dead-centrist Liberal government. Voters abandoned all but the country’s two largest parties—with the regionalist Bloc Québécois, the Greens, the hard-right People’s Party and, above all, the left-wing New Democrats losing badly. All these smaller parties focused on problems with the status quo in Canada and criticized the incumbent Liberal government. Unfortunately for the Conservative Party, that was its strategy too. In the end, the election was not so much about Canada and domestic policy issues as it was about Donald Trump. Voters wanted a prime minister who would be an adult in the room; caution therefore defeated conservativism. The Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, is a talented but polarizing politician, a creature of his party’s base. The Liberal leader, Mark Carney, is dull but statesmanlike and measured, and he made the election about Trump’s bullying and surreal but alarming suggestions that Canada should become America’s 51st state. As the Conservatives hammered the Liberals on the cost of living, the Liberals focused on Canadian values, Canadian unity and Canadian independence. Mark Carney is a banker focused on crisis management. He has acknowledged the changed world that Canada confronts due to Trump, but he is more likely to protect the status quo than be any kind of transformative leader. Two issues were notable for their near absence in the election: greenhouse gas emissions and immigration. Carney’s first act as prime minister was to eliminate the country’s carbon tax, a move which that only worsen the country’s already abysmal record on climate change. More positively, Canada remains the only Western country without much public backlash against immigration.”
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