As results poured in from a seminal election, Canada emerged as a united country from the outside but deeply divided at home. The governing center-left Liberal Party won its fourth consecutive national election but as of this writing the morning after, fell just short of a majority of seats in parliament.
Just 45 days on the job, Prime Minister Mark Carney ran hard, not so much against domestic opposition but by targeting Donald Trump. “Who’s willing to stand up for Canada with strong Canadian values?” Carney asked in his victory speech.
Trump was a perfect foil, professing his wish to make Canada, in his words “our cherished 51st state” and baiting predecessor Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “governor.” In response, said Carney, “We are over the shock of American betrayal and have to look after ourselves.”
Trump has sought to intimidate by slapping a 25 percent tariff on imports from his country’s largest trading partner. The president deepened the insult by arguing that Canada supplies “nothing that we want.”
The statement bespeaks ignorance and laziness. British Columbia supplies much of the Northwest’s natural gas. Three upstream dams in B.C. store water for the great powerhouse at Grand Coulee Dam. Quebec supplies electric power to the eastern U.S. while Alberta ships oil to “the states.”
Carney has given top priority to sitting down with Trump and giving him a lesson in interdependence. He has also vowed to make Canada a global “energy superpower.”
The Liberals staged an epic comeback. They trailed the opposition Conservative Party of Canada by 25 points before the unpopular Trudeau’s resignation. The Harvard and Oxford-educated Carney had never run for public office, but Canadians opted for the smartest kid on the block. Carney, 60, served as Governor of the Bank of Canada and guided his country’s economy to a soft landing during the Great Recession. He later headed the Bank of England during Britain’s exit from the European Union.
Carney and Trump are polar opposites. “The Donald” has described climate change as “a hoax.” Carney is a United Nations adviser on the impacts of global warming. Trump is forever boastful and a serial liar, and never admits to a mistake. By contrast, Carney conceded he makes mistakes, and that he responds by “admitting them openly and correcting them quickly.”
The Liberals have apparently fallen just short of the 172 seats needed for a majority in the House of Commons. As of Tuesday morning, they had captured 168 seats to 144 for the Conservatives. The Tories’ fiery, Trump-style leader Pierre Poilievre — he wanted to eliminate the CBC — went down to defeat in his own riding (electoral district) even as his party made gains.
Both of Canada’s mayor parties — Liberals and Conservatives — feasted on smaller parties. The leftist New Democrats, who govern B.C., had 15 of the province’s seats in parliament going into Monday’s election. They emerged with just one survivor, and the party’s national total slipped to single digits. Elizabeth May, representing Vancouver Island’s Saanich Peninsula, will be the only Green Party member of the House of Commons.
Unlike U.S. politics, subject to Trump tantrums, the “Great White North” showed election-night civility. “Tonight, we come together as Canadians,” said Poilievre, vowing to “stare down tariffs and other irresponsible proposals from Trump.” The New Democrats’ federal leader Jagmeet Singh, also defeated, told supporters: “All of us are on team Canada.”
The Trump-Carney interplay will be fascinating to watch. Presidents and prime ministers have a record of not getting along. Cases in point:
John F. Kennedy made fun of the stuffed marlin decorating a wall of PM John Diefenbaker’s office, speculating that the Chief hadn’t landed the fish. Diefenbaker was furious.
Richard Nixon, in a White House tape, called PM Pierre Elliot Trudeau “an asshole.” To which Trudeau (father of Justin) replied: “I’ve been called worse things by better men.”
PM Jean Chretien was invited to George W. Bush’s Texas ranch, only to have the invite withdrawn when Canada refused to join the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
The Liberal Party of Canada has managed the most difficult operation in a parliamentary democracy, a bloodless head transplant. “America wants our land, our resources, our water,” Carney declared in his victory speech. Instead, he said, Trump will face a sovereign nation “strong and free.”
This story also appears in Cascadia Advocate.
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