Carney’s Liberals Win Canada Election, Setting Up Talks With US

Mark Carney, Canada's prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party, speaks during a campaign rally in Mississauga, Ontario on April 26. Photo by Arlyn McAdorey /Photographer: Arlyn McAdorey/Blo

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(Bloomberg) — Canada’s Liberal Party won a fourth consecutive election, giving a mandate to former central banker Mark Carney after a campaign in which he pledged to boost economic growth and stand up to US President Donald Trump in a trade war.

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Liberal candidates were leading or elected in 135 of the 343 seats, ahead of the Conservative Party with 88 as of 10:14 p.m. Ottawa time. The Liberals will secure enough seats to try to form a government, but it’s still unclear whether they’ll win a majority or be forced to work with other parties to pass legislation, according to projections from major TV networks.

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The Liberals appeared to be winning big in the most populous provinces of Ontario and Quebec, manufacturing centers where key industries such as auto manufacturing, steel and aluminum are in the crosshairs of Trump’s tariffs. The party also continued its dominance of the four provinces in the Atlantic region. 

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Carney’s triumph represents a stunning turnaround for the Liberals, a party that has governed Canada for most of the past century but seemed on track for a historic electoral drubbing just four months ago. The ex-governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England became the party’s leader on March 9 and called an election only two weeks later. He leaned into his position as a prime minister who’d fight for Canada against an aggressive White House. 

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Carney, 60, tried to establish quickly that he was different from his predecessor, Justin Trudeau — more focused on the economy and on building new trade and security alliances, given the new foreign policy coming from Washington. His first steps were to cancel some of Trudeau’s less popular policies, such as a carbon tax on consumers, and to visit two European allies, French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. 

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Once the election campaign began, he said repeatedly that Canadians needed to understand the country’s close relationship with the US has been ruptured by Trump’s actions, including the president’s claims that Canada should be the 51st state. In the final week of March, when Trump signed an order to implement auto tariffs, Carney said: “It’s clear that the United States is no longer a reliable partner.”

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His calm, low-key manner in public and his experience as a policymaker and economist helped reassure voters that he was the best person to take on the challenge of guiding Canada in a new world order, and he swiftly won back people who had become disillusioned with Trudeau. One poll near the end of the campaign showed Carney with about a 10-point advantage over Poilievre on the question of who would make the best prime minister. 

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But now Carney has to live up to his claims of being a consummate crisis manager, after steering two Group of Seven central banks through the 2008 financial crash and Brexit.