Mark Carney and the Canadian Liberals have won an extraordinary victory which seemed impossible a few months ago.
In hispowerful victory speech in English and French, he said that he would be guided by 3 values ; Humility , Ambition and Unity and stressed the importance of bringing the whole country together to deal with the new world we are in.
He could not have been clearer about the threat and the fundamental change: “America wants our land, our resources, our country …. President Trump is trying to break us, so that America can own us. Our old relationship with the United States is over ….. The system of global open trade .. is dead”
Prime Minister Carney talked about expanding trade elsewhere : “we have many other options than the US to build prosperity for all Canadians”
Notably, Mr Carney talked about doubling the amount of home building “using Canadian technology, Canadian skilled workers and Canadian lumber” and he intends to turn Canada into an “energy superpower in both clean and conventional energy”
He did not attempt to sugar coat things : “the coming days and months will be challenging and they will call for some sacrifices , but we will share those sacrifices by supporting our workers and businesses” and “above all we will build an independent future for our great country”.
I was most struck in his speech by a simple phrase and a huge rebuke to Trump :
“We see kindness as a virtue not as a weakness”
There is much which echoes what Ed Davey has been saying about dealing with Trump and I hope that Keir Starmer will welcome this result and start building closer trade links with our friends in Canada.
As fellow members of Liberal International we have our own part to play is in and I have asked that at the meeting of the Federal Conference Committee next week we discuss inviting a speaker from the Canadian Liberals, either in person or via zoom to address our Autumn Conference .
Elbows up !
* Simon McGrath is a councillor in Wimbledon and Whip of the Lib Dem Group on Merton Council.
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8 Comments
It is a remarkable turnaround from a 25 point deficit. Currently, it looks like Carney’s party are on track to win 167 of the 172 seats needed for a majority, so will either govern as a minority of form a coalition and Conservatives have a strong opposition block of 145 seats.
Reuters notes that “Minority governments in Canada rarely last longer than 2-1/2 years.” Canada’s Liberals win minority government
…………Mark Carney and the Canadian Liberals have won an extraordinary victory which seemed impossible a few months ago………
Mark Carney and the liberals didn’t actually win an extraordinary victory… Until Trump threatened to annex Canada the vast majority of Canadians were embracing Conservative policies and only voted Liberal as a protest against that threat…
Carney and the Canadian Liberals have been elected by default; their stewardship will define whether or not they last longer than a year..
@dExpats. What an ungenerous comment. One fights an election on the issues one faces . Canadian voters have judged that Mark Carney and the Liberals are what they want to lead Canada, rather than Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives. To say this is by default is mean spirited in the extreme. In any event it seems clear that Mark Carney is the man who has the skills to be a leading light in the fight back against the Trump new order. As Liberals we should rejoice in our sister party’s success.
It’s great the the Liberals have won, but it looks to me like it was largely because of NDP and BC supporters tactically voting Liberal in order to keep out the Conservatives under Canada’s FPTP system. In fact, in the previous two elections in 2019 and 2021, the Liberals got the most seats despite getting slightly fewer votes than the Conservatives – this time the Liberals overtook the Conservatives in votes, probably because of the tactical voting. Canada suffers from the same problem as the UK that FPTP in a multi-party system leads to very unrepresentative Parliaments and – so far as I can tell – people feeling unable to vote for the party they want to vote for.
You’d think a more proportional system would serve the country much better (and by the way, shouldn’t be anything for the Liberals to be afraid of: The smaller parties there are generally towards the left and are unlikely to support the Conservatives in a hung parliament)
Mark Carney’s victory also highlights a potential political issue for liberals and those of a left or social democratic persuasion.
We know what the consensus of opinion is on the wisdom of Canada of possibly cosying up to the USA. Such as sharing a Congress/Parliament, laws and even a currency.
The new Canadian PM Mark Carney insists that he’s all for a friendly relationship with the USA, is happy to trade freely, and is happy to try to resolve any problems amicably etc etc but Trump, and others in the USA, should accept that Canada is a separate and independent country. We’d all agree with him on that.
So why is it any different for the UK and Europe? Rejoiners don’t really get that it’s not about whether we’d be slightly better off in the EU than out of it. Just as it isn’t about whether Canada would be slightly better off in the USA. I’m sure I could make a decent economic case for that, incidentally! It would be far easier than saying the UK should be part of the EU in the same way that Germany and France are.
Neither is it about Trump, Carney, or even Ursula von der Leyen. Leaders come and go. It would be a mistake for anyone to make a decision on the basis of any current personalities.
Peter, You ask ” why is it any different for the UK and Europe?” Indeed I thought at first your question was purely rhetorical, but looking at the rest of your post, it seems not. The difference is that we have tried it both ways had have seen how bad the current option is. Canada, have a totally different set of circumstances and have rightly come to a different conclusion. We had our blond buffoon in power and we saw where it took us. The possibilities of what America’s blond buffoon could do to Canada are clear.
Mick Taylor 30th Apr ’25 – 6:50am……@dExpats. What an ungenerous comment….
Why ungenerous? It is a fact…
It wasn’t Canadians embracing ‘Liberal Values’ that won Carney the election. This was a vote against Trump’s delusional intention to ‘Annex Canada as the 51st state’ and his economic warfare strategy rather than an endorsement of the Liberals’ policies…Having previously declared his admiration for Trump Poilievre found himself on the wrong side of a surge of patriotic anger….
However, even riding that wave, it was a close run thing…Carney himself placed this issue at the centre of his campaign, painting himself as a reluctant but competent anti-Trump saviour. “If there’s not a crisis, you wouldn’t be seeing me,”
I repeat…”Carney and the Canadian Liberals have been elected by default; their stewardship will define whether or not they last longer than a year.”. Remember Trudeau
It should not be forgotten that voters (except perhaps in the US) are not ideologues or partisans on the whole. So @expats could well be right in saying that the Liberal victory in Canada was not from “Canadians embracing ‘Liberal Values’”. But in that case the previous Conservative lead was probably nothing to do with Canadians embracing Conservative values. It was simply that voters being fed up with the tired incumbent government, and PM Justin Trudeau in particular. Voters likely didn’t think too much about the policy details. Then Trump’s election led to a rude awakening among Canadian voters about exactly what PP’s brand of right-wing populism meant for them. Mark Carney’s victory was undoubtedly the result of that, but it’s all “events, dear boy, events” as Macmillan didn’t say. We should savour any victory, regardless of how it arrives.