Canadians voted Monday to keep the country’s Liberal Party in power, after U.S. President Donald Trump seemingly doomed the country’s conservatives by launching a trade war and threatening the country’s sovereignty.
Prime Minister Mark Carney will keep his job after a hard-fought campaign in which he pitched himself as the best suited candidate to confront Trump’s aggression, defeating Pierre “Maple MAGA” Poilievre, who has spoken favorably of Trump.
The election was called just after 10:00 p.m. ET by local networks. It appeared late Monday night that the Liberal Party had only won enough support to form a minority government, according to CTV News.
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In other words, it will need to form a governing coalition with a smaller party after falling short of the 172 seats in the House of Commons needed to win an outright majority.
The results marked a shocking turnaround for Canada’s liberals, whose chances at keeping power just months ago looked bleak.
Conservatives had led in the polls up until the time Trump took office. But as Trump continued to belittle America’s northern neighbor as the “51st state” and enacted his whirlwind trade policy, sentiment swiftly swung in Liberals’ favor.
The party was also buoyed by the resignation in March of Justin Trudeau, the former Prime Minister who had grown unpopular amid a series of crises. After governing as prime minister for a decade, Trudeau faced the resignation of several key allies and the loss of support from parties in the country’s parliament—the left-leaning New Democrats and a Quebec nationalist party, Bloc Quebecois—that threatened Canada’s governing coalition.
Trudeau initially announced his intent to resign in January after facing calls to step down from within his caucus for months.
“This country deserves a real choice in the next election and it has become clear to me that if I am having to fight internal battles I cannot be the best option in that election,” Trudeau said a the time.
He also took an opportunity to clap back at Trump during his farewell speech in March, saying that Canadians were “showing exactly what we are made of” in the face of an “existential challenge” from the U.S.
“We’re a country that celebrates the right of each and every person to be who they want to be, to pray as they pray, and love who they love,” he continued.
“We’re a country that will always defend a woman’s right to choose. We’re a country that will be diplomatic when we can but fight when we must, elbows up,” he added, referencing a phrase popularized by hockey legend Gordie Howe which roughly means “defend yourself.” It has been used in recent weeks as a not-so-veiled dig at Trump and the United States.
Trump himself was aware of his effect on the race, oddly bragging about it in recent days.
“You know, until I came along, remember that the conservative was leading by 25 points,” Trump said in an interview with The Atlantic published Monday.
“Then I was disliked by enough of the Canadians that I’ve thrown the election into a close call, right? I don’t even know if it’s a close call,” he added.
Carney, a former central banker for the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, campaigned on his ability to protect Canada’s economy from Trump’s tariffs. He even met with the American president in the days before Monday’s election, rattling his own saber in response to Trump’s bloviating.
“The president brings this up all the time. He brought it up yesterday. He brought it up before,” Carney told reporters this week. “He has these things in his mind. This is not news.”
“To be clear, as I’ve said to anyone who’s raised this issue in private or in public, including the president, it will never happen,” the BBC reported.
Poilievre, a career politician dedicated to reducing the size the federal government and cutting regulations, has been compared to Trump for his criticisms of “woke ideology,” as well as his plans to defund the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and cut foreign aid.
Following Carney’s win, several liberals thanked Trump for inspiring Canada to go left.
“Thanks for all of your help @DonaldTrump,” author Don Winslow wrote on X. “We couldn’t have done it without your insanity.”
“A remarkable turnaround for Canada’s liberal party, driven in no small part by reaction to Trump’s tariffs and 51st state jibes,” CNN anchor Jim Sciutto similarly quipped.
