Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
An image of Prime Minister Mark Carney positioned near the Canadian parliament.
Now comes the hard part for Carney
Mark Carney, who has never sat in Parliament and has only been a politician for four months, faces a lot of political puzzles after leading his Liberal Party to victory in Canada on Monday, and one huge challenge south of the border.
The former central banker was widely expected to win a majority but ended up coming short, with 169 seats in the House, just three short of a majority. That means that the path ahead is twistier than it would otherwise have been.
Opposition parties plagued by infighting and weakness
Still, there is no danger of Carney’s government falling any time soon. The New Democratic Party was all but annihilated on Monday, left with only seven leaderless MPs after Jagmeet Singh came third in his British Columbia riding and stepped down as party leader. The last thing they will want is to go to an election anytime soon.
And Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet, who has just 22 MPs, down from 32, said Monday that he recognizes that voters want stability. The leader of the provincial separatist party is attacking him, which suggests they have issues they need to sort out.
That leaves the Conservatives, with 144 seats, up 25 from the last election. They can be expected to vote against the Liberal government, but there are not enough of them to stop anything, and they seem to have some internal battles they will want to finish before they are ready to fight anyone outside their movement.
During the campaign, Conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford repeatedly cast shade on Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. Ford’s campaign manager, Kory Teneycke, made headlines last month when he denounced Poilievre as incompetent: “This campaign is going to be studied for decades as the biggest f**king disaster in terms of having lost a massive lead.”
On election night, an MP close to Poilievre, Jamil Jivani, angrily denounced Ford as “a hype man for the Liberal Party,” which suggests the feud is not finished.
Poilievre, who gave Ford’s people a cold shoulder for two years while he was 20 points ahead in the polls, is vulnerable after losing an election that he seemed to have in the bag. The last two leaders of his party were forced out after losing to Trudeau, but they did not face the kind of open disdain that Poilievre does, and on Monday night, he lost his own seat, which means he will not be in the House until he convinces an MP to resign to let him run.
The Liberals, who will not miss his devastating critiques in the House, have six months to call a byelection to let him win a seat. They probably will not be petty and make him wait, but he will still not be there until the fall.
How Liberals can govern without a majority
If Carney wants to, he could likely manage to lure a few MPs across the floor to join his party, which would give him a majority. It would look cynical but would allow the Liberals to control committees where the government can be embarrassed and legislation bogged down.
Either way, Carney can govern as if he has a majority until the other parties get organized, and he has things he wants to do. He won a mandate to use deficit financing to build the economy, which is already on the brink of a recession thanks to a trade war with the Americans.
“We will need to do things previously thought impossible at speeds we haven’t seen in generations,” he said in his victory speech Monday night.
He has promised to jumpstart the economy and tackle the housing crisis with a pre-fabricated housing program, build new energy corridors, remove interprovincial trade barriers, and renegotiate the trade relationship with the United States.
Politics should not get in his way, says Gerald Butts, vice chairman of Eurasia Group, who advised Carney during the election campaign.
“I don’t think he’s going to peel back on his major promises, whether it’s the housing, building the housing agency, free trade in Canada, all the stuff that he kept saying,” Butts said. “His view is very direct on this, that ‘I asked for a mandate to do big things, I got a mandate to do big things, and now I'm going to do those things,’ and that he has the responsibility to do them.”
The Conservatives can be expected to oppose his agenda, but he doesn’t need them to get his stuff through the House, says Fred DeLorey, who was campaign manager for Poilievre’s predecessor, Erin O’Toole.
“He likely has a bit of wiggle room, depending on what it is he brings in and how aggressive it is and how palatable it is to the Bloc and NDP,” DeLorey said. “If he brings in something that really is against their values, you're gonna have a problem.”
Will Carney and Trump get along?
Carney won by promising to stand up to Donald Trump, his tariffs, and his annexation threats. The two men spoke the day after the election and agreed to meet in person soon. In a news release, Carney’s office said they "agreed on the importance of Canada and the United States working together – as independent, sovereign nations – for their mutual betterment."
Trump, of course, is insisting that Canada should become the 51st state, something Canadians rejected in Monday’s election.
In his concession speech, Poilievre promised to “put Canada first as we stare down tariffs and other irresponsible threats from President Trump.”
Trump has been remarkably consistent about his annexation plans, and Carney won the election by promising to resist those plans, so it is hard to know how the relationship will work.
“I think that on the one hand, Mark can be caricatured by the right in the United States and abroad as a globalist elite,” said Butts. “On the other, he’s the kind of person who Trump would respect. So I don’t know how it’s gonna go, to be honest. It’s gonna be a hard restart of the personal diplomatic relationship between the two countries at the highest levels.”
So far, so good. On Wednesday, Trump had kind words for the new prime minister and said Carney would be traveling to the White House within a week. Carney has been successful at everything he has done in his professional life, so it would be foolish to bet against him, but everything now depends on how he manages Canada’s southern neighbor.