The Liberal Party of Canada has secured a fourth consecutive election victory, with voters entrusting former central banker Mark Carney to manage the country’s response to Donald Trump’s latest economic brinkmanship.
The margin? Let’s call it “delicately slim.” By Tuesday just after midnight in Ottawa, Liberals led or had secured 168 seats—comfortably ahead of the Conservatives’ 144 but still shy of the 172 needed for a majority. So, yes, the new Carney government enters Parliament with ambition, but it will need to play nicely with others if it wants to get anything done.

Carney, whose ascent from private-sector technocrat to Prime Minister took all of three and a half months, greeted supporters in Ottawa with the enthusiasm of a man who just got the job and is only now realising what it entails: cross-party compromise, provincial tantrums, and a trade war with a neighbour that used to be an ally.
“We’ve overcome the shock of American betrayal,” Carney told his cheering fans. “But we mustn’t forget the lesson: don’t bring a maple leaf to a tariff fight.”
Trump’s shadow loomed large over this election. The former U.S. president, now a presumptive candidate, spent weeks threatening Canada’s auto industry and calling for the country to be absorbed into the U.S. as the 51st state. Carney’s message in response? Canada will not be bullied, and no, thank you, we’ll be keeping our own flag.

Despite barely squeaking by, Carney’s win is a dramatic turnaround for the Liberals, who were heading for a political iceberg just four months ago. He’s already repealed Trudeau’s carbon tax on consumers, flown to kiss rings in Paris and London, and promised to remake Canada as an “energy superpower”—presumably minus American interference.
But let’s not forget: this is still a man who spent years wearing silk ties at the Bank of England, and the electorate has now handed him a leaky boat in a storm. Canada’s economy teeters on the edge of recession, productivity growth is anaemic, and over three-quarters of exports now go directly to a trading partner under Trump’s influence.
Still, Europe sent flowers. Keir Starmer pledged deeper economic ties, and Ursula von der Leyen praised the ever-“stronger” transatlantic relationship—no doubt thrilled to deal with a Canadian PM who doesn’t casually threaten trade wars on social media.

Meanwhile, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who ran on a populist, Trump-lite platform, lost his seat. It was a humiliation, to be sure, though not necessarily a resignation letter. Still, the optics are damning: the man who promised to “fix everything” got voted out of his riding.
Poilievre’s campaign mimicked the usual Trumpian playlist—woke-bashing, media-baiting, and tax-slashing—but it fell flat in a nation where Trump is less admired than admonished. His slogan, “Canada First – For a Change”, resonated with some, but perhaps not enough.

For Carney, the real test begins now. He’s promised a new economic and security pact with the U.S., a renegotiation of the vaunted USMCA trade agreement, and a return to global diplomacy with actual allies. All while juggling climate pledges, housing targets, budget deficits, and a restive Alberta with its perennial threats of national disunity.
The former central banker must now prove he’s not just a crisis manager but a leader who can steer a middle power through the chaos of Trumpism 2.0—without turning Ottawa into Westminster on stilts.