In early January, as Justin Trudeau approached a full decade as Canada’s prime minister, his Liberal Party was facing bleak electoral conditions. Polls showed Liberals struggling badly — by some measures, trailing Conservatives by a two-to-one margin — and as national elections neared, the question was less about whether Liberals would lose power and more about how lopsided the blowout would be.
And then Donald Trump returned to the White House, took steps to shatter the relationship between the United States and its allied neighbor, announced plans to try to acquire Canada and make it America’s 51st state, and launched a damaging trade war that led Canadian leaders to conclude that they could no longer trust or rely on their ostensible U.S. partners.
The public backlash to Trump was the one thing — perhaps, the only thing — that could rescue the Liberal Party and keep Prime Minister Mark Carney in office. And as NBC News reported, that’s precisely what happened.
Canadian voters backed Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party on Monday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. projects, in a national election strongly influenced by U.S. President Donald Trump. The CBC said it was too early to know whether the Liberals would win enough seats to form a majority government, but it projected another term for the party, which has governed Canada for almost a decade.
While celebrating the results, Carney focused much of his remarks on domestic affairs, though he also devoted parts of his celebratory speech to the American president who helped fuel the Liberals’ victory that seemed unlikely in the very recent past.
“President Trump is trying to break us, so that America can own us. That will never, that will never, ever happen,” the prime minister said.
“The system of open global trade anchored by the United States, a system that Canada has relied on since the Second World War, a system that, while not perfect, has helped deliver prosperity for a country for decades, is over,” Carney added. “These are tragedies, but it’s also our new reality. We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons.
“We have to look out for ourselves and above all, we have to take care of each other. 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.”
For his part, the Republican has been uncharacteristically quiet about the results — as of this writing, the American president has not published anything to his social media platform about the Canadian elections — though if recent history is any guide, Trump will have something to say before long.
As for Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the opposition Conservatives, the sudden shift in his electoral fortunes has been brutal. As of a few months ago, Poilievre was widely seen as the next Canadian prime minister. Now, thanks almost entirely to Trump’s antics, the Conservative leader didn’t just lose an opportunity to lead, he also appears to have lost his own seat in Parliament.
As Election Day in Canada got underway, Trump published a weird item online, once again insisting that Canada should become an American state. “ALL POSITIVES WITH NO NEGATIVES. IT WAS MEANT TO BE!” he wrote. “America can no longer subsidize Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!”
Poilievre wrote soon after, “President Trump, stay out of our election.”
It was far too late for that: Trump had already positioned himself at the center of the election, and it made all the difference for Liberals.
