Prime Minister Mark Carney arrives at the Office of the Prime Minister in Ottawa on April 29.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke with Donald Trump about deepening defence and commercial ties between Canada and the United States on Tuesday, just hours after he led the Liberal Party to an election win with a campaign focused on standing up to the U.S. President’s economic threats.

The two leaders agreed to meet in person in the near future, according to a summary of the call released by Mr. Carney’s office.

A late wave of vote counting updated the party standings on Tuesday afternoon to show the Liberals could form a minority government that is just a few seats shy of the 172 required to form a majority.

It is the fourth consecutive election win for the Liberal Party, which won a majority in 2015 under former leader Justin Trudeau, followed by two minority mandates in 2019 and 2021.

Mr. Carney did not hold a news conference Tuesday but made brief comments to reporters on his way into the Prime Minister‘s Office.

“Lots of energy, lots to do,” he said in French.

Mr. Carney also spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron Tuesday, according to his office.

In his call with Mr. Trump, “President Trump congratulated Prime Minister Carney on his recent election,” the summary said.

“The leaders agreed on the importance of Canada and the United States working together – as independent, sovereign nations – for their mutual betterment.”

The central focus of Mr. Carney’s election campaign was his pitch to voters that his professional experience in business and central banking made him the best candidate to negotiate trade issues with Mr. Trump on Canada’s behalf.

In his victory speech delivered in the early hours of Tuesday morning, he repeated his pledge to negotiate with the United States while also expanding trade with other countries and reaching an internal trade agreement with the provinces and territories by Canada Day.

“When I sit down with President Trump, it will be to discuss the future economic and security relationship between two sovereign nations, and it will be with our full knowledge that we have many, many other options than the United States to build prosperity for all Canadians,” he said.

He promised to build new trade corridors, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the skilled trades and build Canada into an energy superpower in both clean and conventional energy.

“It is a time to be bold, to meet this crisis with overwhelming positive force of a united Canada, because we are going to build, build baby build,” he said.

On his way into the Prime Minister‘s Office Tuesday, Mr. Carney also said “we‘ll see” when asked if he would quickly call a by-election to allow Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to run for a seat in the House of Commons.

Mr. Poilievre was defeated in the riding of Carleton, where he has won seven times previously, beginning in 2004.

Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy won the riding with nearly 51 per cent of the vote. Mr. Poilievre finished second with nearly 46 per cent.

If the Liberals end up with a minority government as expected, it would mean they would need the support or co-operation of at least one other party to win votes in the House of Commons. The Conservatives, Bloc Québécois and NDP all have enough seats on their own to allow measures to pass in the House of Commons with the Liberals should they choose.

In the previous Parliament, the NDP and the Liberals had a supply-and-confidence arrangement in which the NDP agreed to keep the Liberals in power in exchange for action on NDP policy priorities.

Minority Parliaments have become quite common in recent Canadian political history. Both Liberal and Conservative-led minority governments have often obtained support for spending or legislation on a vote-by-vote basis rather than by creating formal alliances with a smaller party.

Michele Cadario, a former deputy chief of staff to Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, who led a minority government from 2004 to 2006, said she doesn’t expect any of the opposition parties will be actively pushing to defeat the new government in the near term.

During his time as prime minister, Mr. Martin convinced Conservative MP Belinda Stronach to cross the floor and enter the Liberal cabinet, allowing the government to survive a key confidence vote.

When Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper formed a minority government in 2006, he convinced Liberal MP David Emmerson to cross the floor and join the Conservative cabinet.

Ms. Cadario said convincing some opposition MPs to cross the floor could be an option for the Carney government, but she said that kind of negotiation typically takes time before an agreement is reached.

“There could be some kind of a policy catalyst that maybe triggers one of the members of the opposition to want to come across the floor. I would be surprised if it happened any time soon,” she said.

Elections Canada updated the vote counts for several close ridings Tuesday afternoon. The update tentatively flipped the Quebec riding of Terrebonne to the Liberals with a narrow 35-vote lead over the Bloc Québécois incumbent.

That update added one seat to the Liberal count, bringing it to 169. However, the closeness of the final numbers means the results in that riding northeast of Montreal will be subject to a recount.

The Globe and Mail is not confirming the seat totals or whether the results produced a minority government because the results could change in the coming days based on recounts in some ridings across the country.

The updated results show the Conservatives won 144 seats and the Bloc won 22 seats. The NDP finished with seven seats, falling short of the 12 required for official party status, which triggers extra funding for research and support staff.

Green Party co-leader Elizabeth May was re-elected on Vancouver Island but the party’s other MP in the last Parliament, Mike Morrice, lost to Conservative candidate Kelly DeRidder in Kitchener Centre.

The updated results also revised the vote count in several tight ridings.

Those ridings included updated results showing that NDP candidate Lori Idlout, the incumbent, received 77 more votes than the second-place Liberal candidate in Nunavut.

NDP incumbent Don Davies also finished on top in the riding of Vancouver Kingsway, with a 310-vote lead over the Liberal candidate.

The updated results also showed the Liberals barely held on to three ridings in the Brampton area northwest of Toronto that were all won by fewer than 1,000 votes.

Liberal incumbent Kamal Khera also lost the riding of Brampton West to Conservative Amarjeet Gill by 898 votes.