Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada won a new term on Monday – yesterday, April 28 -night, the national broadcaster CBC/Radio Canada projected, a remarkable turnaround for his Liberal Party, owed in large part to President Trump’s aggressive stance toward the country.
Still, much remained in play in the election. The Conservative Party leader, Pierre Poilievre, conceded the election, but after 1 a.m. Eastern time it was still unclear whether he had retained the seat in Parliament he has held for 20 years. Mr. Carney made an acceptance speech, but it was still not known whether he would be forming a majority or minority government.
Preliminary results were likely to be available overnight Tuesday. A minority government would require support from other parties to pass legislation and would be weaker and less stable than a majority.
But the voters’ decision sealed a stunning reversal for the Liberal Party that just months ago seemed all but certain to lose to the Conservative Party. Mr. Carney has been prime minister since March, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stepped down.
The centerpiece of Mr. Carney’s acceptance speech early Tuesday morning was Canada’s response to Mr. Trump’s policies.
“As I’ve been warning for months, America wants our land, our resources, our water,” he said. “President Trump is trying to break us so he can own us. That will never happen.” He warned Canadians that the road ahead would be difficult and might require sacrifices.
When Mr. Poilievre conceded early Tuesday morning, he said that he would remain as party leader. The Conservative caucus can remove him from the post, which it did to the party’s two previous leaders after it failed to form the government.
The election has been remarkable in many ways, with candidates and many voters describing it as the most important vote in their lifetimes.
It has been dominated by Mr. Trump and his relentless focus on Canada, America’s closest ally and trading partner. Mr. Trump has imposed tariffs on Canadian goods, pushing the country toward a recession, and repeatedly threatened to annex it as the 51st state. Even as Canadians were heading to the polls on Monday morning, he repeated that desire, arguing on social media that it would bring economic and military benefits.
Mr. Carney, 60, a seasoned economist and policymaker who promoted himself as the anti-Trump candidate and centered his campaign on dealing with the United States, ultimately benefited from the American president’s actions.
Mr. Poilievre, 45, and the Conservatives had been dominating polls for years, building a platform against the Liberals and Mr. Trudeau around the argument that they had dragged Canada into prolonged economic malaise.
But they watched their double-digit lead rapidly evaporate after Mr. Trump’s aggressiveness toward Canada and Mr. Trudeau’s resignation.
Canadians heading to the polls were preoccupied both with the country’s relationship with its neighbor to the south and with the state of the economy at home. Affordability worries, primarily over housing, were top of mind, opinion surveys conducted before the election showed.
But Canada’s choice on Monday also came as a kind of referendum against Mr. Trump and the way he has been treating America’s allies and its trading partners.
It’s the second major international election since Mr. Trump came to power, after Germany, and Canada’s handling of the rupture in the relationship with the United States is being closely watched around the world.
The election also highlighted that Mr. Trump’s brand of conservative politics can turn toxic for conservatives elsewhere if they are seen as being too aligned with his ideological and rhetorical style. Mr. Poilievre, who railed against “radical woke ideology,” pledged to defund Canada’s national broadcaster and said he would cut foreign aid, seemed to have lost centrist voters, pre-election polls suggested.
For Mr. Carney, Monday’s victory marked an astonishing moment in his rapid rise in Canada’s political establishment since entering the race to replace Mr. Trudeau in January.
A political novice but policy-making veteran, Mr. Carney conveyed a measured, serious tone and defiance toward Mr. Trump’s aggressive overtures, helping to sway voters who had been contemplating supporting the Conservatives, according to polls and some individual voters. And his politics as a pragmatist and a centrist seemed to better align with Canada’s mood after a decade of Mr. Trudeau’s progressive agenda.
The road ahead for Mr. Carney and his new government will be hard. For starters, he will need to engage with Mr. Trump and his unpredictable attitude toward Canada and discuss fraught issues, including trade and security.
And he will need to show voters that his economic policy credentials can truly be put to use to improve Canada’s slow economic growth and persistently high unemployment.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain also offered congratulations to Mark Carney. “With your leadership, and personal ties to the U.K., I know the relationship between our two countries will continue to grow,” Starmer said. Carney is well known in Britain: he was governor of the Bank of England between 2013 and 2020.
Ursula von der Leyen, the European Union’s top official, issued a warm congratulatory message to Mark Carney. “The bond between Europe and Canada is strong — and growing stronger,” she said. Carney has been working on a deal with the E.U. on military production, and has said that he is looking toward the bloc to diversify Canada’s security alliances and trade partnerships away from the United States.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is also facing an election soon, congratulated Mark Carney. “In a time of global uncertainty, I look forward to continuing to work with you to build on the enduring friendship between our nations, in the shared interests of all our citizens,” Albanese said on social media.
Much is still in play in Canada’s election. Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader, has conceded but we still don’t know if he has retained the parliament seat he has held for some 20 years. And it remains unclear whether Mark Carney will form a majority government or a minority one.
Mark Carney has spent much of this speech talking about values, which, incidentally, is the title of his book. He has focused on the values that make Canada unique, including, he said, humility and ambition.
“When I sit down with President Trump, it will be to discuss the future economic and strategic relationship between two sovereign nations and it will be with full knowledge that we have many other options to build prosperity for all Canadians,” Mark Carney says. He then strikes a more somber tone, warning Canadians that the road ahead will be hard and might require sacrifices.
“As I’ve been warning for months, America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country,” Mark Carney says. “President Trump is trying to break us so he can own us. That will never, ever happen.”
Pierre Poilievre did not mention in his speech that he is well behind in the vote count to retain his seat in the House of Commons. While he said that he was staying on as party leader, the Conservative caucus has the power to remove him from the post. It did that to the party’s two previous leaders after it failed to form the government.
Canadians have opted for a razor-thin minority government, Pierre Poilievre says. “I would like to congratulate Prime Minister Carney on leading this minority government,” he says. It is worth noting that it is not yet clear whether the next government will in fact be a minority one or not, as results are still coming in.
Pierre Poilievre says he will be honored to continue to fight for the Conservatives. It does not sound like he plans to stand down as party leader. The party has made important gains in this election compared with the last one, despite coming second. “To my fellow conservatives, we have much to celebrate tonight,” Poilievre says.
After losing his seat in British Columbia, Jagmeet Singh stepped down as leader of the New Democratic Party. This election has been devastating for the left-of-center party. It was projected to fall well short of the 12 seats required for official status in the House of Commons. That will mean fewer financial resources and limited parliamentary privileges.
Former U.S. President Biden has issued a message of congratulations to Mark Carney and the Liberals. “I’m confident Mark will be a strong leader for the fundamental values and interests Canadians and Americans share,” he said in a post on X.
Even though the Liberal Party and Mark Carney have been projected to win the election, it is still way too early to tell if they will secure a majority of seats in the House of Commons, or if they will be forced to form a minority government.
Chrystia Freeland, whose resignation as deputy prime minister and finance minister helped lead to Justin Trudeau’s resignation as prime minister, easily won her Toronto seat. Freeland finished a distant second to Mark Carney in the campaign to succeed Trudeau as Liberal leader and, thus, prime minister last month.
The Liberals regained a downtown Toronto constituency that the party lost to the Conservatives last June in a special election. That loss in the Liberals’ fortress was one of a series of political blows that led to Justin Trudeau’s resignation as prime minister. This time, Leslie Church won by a substantial margin over the Conservative incumbent, Don Stewart.
The Liberal Party needs 172 seats in the House of Commons to secure a majority government. It can still form a government if it falls short of that, but it will need the support of other parties to pass legislation and would be left in a weakened position.
Mark Carney becomes the first prime minister to have been born in Canada’s territories. He was born in Fort Smith, in the Northwest Territories.
Carney defied Canadian political history in two ways on Monday. Few prime ministers have taken over unpopular governments and then gone on to win a general election. And it is similarly remarkable that his Liberal Party secured a fourth consecutive term.
Canada uses paper ballots, which employees of Elections Canada count by hand at every polling station; no counting machines are used. Candidates are allowed to appoint representatives to oversee the counting process.
The polling stations’ results are then reported to Elections Canada, which immediately releases them online.
Because the ballot boxes are not moved to central counting locations, the first results usually begin trickling in soon after the polls close. The full count tends to extend until well after the broad results of the election have become clear.
