Canada Elections: Liberals projected to return to power with fourth consecutive mandate
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Mark Carney Wins and Next PM
Jagmeet Singh resigning as NDP Leader, Lost his Seat
Ottawa: Mark Carney, the former central banker who sought elected office for the first time, led the Liberals to a victory Monday in an election that was upended by Donald Trump’s trade war and musings about annexation amid persistent concerns about 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 11:55 p.m., Liberals were leading or elected in 162 ridings and the Conservatives in 149.
Like in 2019 and 2021, Mr. Carney may need to govern with the support of one of the opposition parties, likely the Bloc Québécois who holds the balance of power.
In Quebec, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet was expected to win his riding, but his party appeared on track to lose as many as 10 seats amid rising electoral support for the Liberals.
The NDP vote plummeted in every province, according to early results Monday night, with support bleeding to the Liberals and Conservatives.
The NDP, which previously had the bulk of its caucus in British Columbia, was leading in only four ridings in that province Monday night.
In early results, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was in third place in his Burnaby Central riding with 28.5 per cent of polls reporting.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s riding of Carleton was too close to call early Tuesday morning with only 20 per cent of polls reporting.
Ballot counting in this riding was frustrated by a protest against Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system that saw eighty-five activists run in the riding, making the ballot 91 names long.
The race was tight as of early Tuesday morning with Mr. Poilievre trailing Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy by more than 1,400 votes.
A minority Liberal government would bring continued instability, with the threat of defeat hanging over the government.
Still, the Liberal 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 riding of Nepean.
Facing a party revolt, Mr. Trudeau stepped aside in January and the Liberals were quick to embrace Mr. Carney, a suave technocrat and political rookie with extensive economic expertise in handling the 2008 global meltdown and Brexit in 2020.
Mr. Carney’s ascension as Liberal leader and the U.S. President’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 open immediate negotiations with the Trump administration to avoid an all-out trade war while recalling 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, 33 for the Bloc Quebecois, while the NDP stood at 25 and the Greens at 2. There were four Independents and one vacancy.
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 Justin Trudeau, capitalizing on anger at the consumer carbon levy, housing affordability, mass immigration and the spiralling cost of living.
