The Liberal Party of Canada, led by Mark Carney, has risen from the dead – politically speaking – and will form the next federal government in Ottawa. This is in remarkable contrast, of course, to the harrowing fate Liberals faced under Justin Trudeau’s premiership only a few months ago, when Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives were cruising to an impressive mandate.
The Liberals, unlike the cocksure Poilievre, pivoted. They dispensed with the jejune Trudeau and turned to Carney, a former banker, as their saviour. The calculated gamble paid handsome dividends last night with the Liberals winning a fourth consecutive term, while the perpetually crestfallen Tories will return, yet again, to the purgatory of the Opposition benches.
Carney owes an electoral debt to New Democratic Party leader, Jagmeet Singh, for resisting the unrelenting pressure – inside and outside the House of Commons – to withdraw his parliamentary support for the Liberals until Trudeau succumbed to a caucus coup. Otherwise, Poilievre would likely have prevailed had an election been called earlier.
But above all, Carney owes the deepest debt of gratitude to US President Donald Trump. The instant Trump was restored to the Oval Office and began musing publicly about his imperial plans for Canada and its abundant natural riches, the political terrain moved, inexorably, in the Liberal Party’s favour.
Carney and his handlers understood that the only question that would determine the outcome of perhaps the most consequential election in Canada’s often-turbulent history was who would best confront the existential threat to its sovereignty, posed by a mercurial American president intent on annexing a proud neighbour to the north.
Trump injected himself so brazenly into the Canadian consciousness – never skirting the delicious chance to remind voters of the tall, ominous shadow he has cast over a fretting country’s destiny.
Indeed, when polls appeared to tighten on the eve of the election, Trump broke his uncharacteristic silence to give renewed life to his feverish desire to gobble up Canada. While Carney may have fallen tantalisingly short of a coveted majority, he was able to convince a plurality of Canadians that a dour technocrat was the “serious” antidote to a profoundly unserious president.
So, given the happy circumstances, Prime Minister-elect Carney should pen a handwritten thank-you note to Trump for parading madly around as the cartoonish villain that Canadians – including a fair share of once separatist-leaning Quebecers – recoiled from and were eager to defy at the polls.
For Carney and grateful company, Trump was an irrepressible gift who could not resist the ego-gratifying temptation of confirming his power to shape not only American history, but Canada’s, too.
Still, Trump represents a singular and grave challenge to Canada’s suddenly precarious future. He is an inveterate troll, leveraging his potent pulpit and an addiction to social media to stir chaos and disturb the bearings of his supporters and adversaries alike. Last week, in an interview with Time magazine marking his 100 days in office, Trump insisted that his quest to convert Canada into America’s 51st state was sincere.
“I’m really not trolling,” he said. “The only way this really works is for Canada to become a state.”
For his part, Carney has repeatedly warned that the decades-long, reliable compact between Canada and the United States has ended.
“America wants our land. Our resources. Our water. Our country. These are not idle threats. President Trump is trying to break us, so America can own us,” he said recently. “Our old relationship with the United States is over.”
