Shortly after 1 in the morning on Tuesday, Mark Carney entered a stage at the old Civic Center of Ottawa, the same hockey sand where John Turner was elected liberal leader in 1984, the last time the liberals tried to replace a member of the Trudeau family, and promised to be guided by the “Canadian values” of humility, ambition and unity.
“It is a time to be bold, to fulfill this crisis with the overwhelming positive force of a United Canada,” he said.
With that, Carney limited what could be the most notable four -month period in the history of Canadian politics, an incredible sequence of events that began, surprisingly, on the morning of December 16.
When the country woke up that day, Justin Trudeau was still prime minister, Joe Biden was still the president of the United States, Donald Trump’s comments on Canada that became the state 51 were still Just a jokeand the conservatives of Pierre Poilievre had an advantage of 21 points over liberals in opinion surveys.
Trudeau’s liberals were on the way to being not only replaced, but a populist conservative who promised to do things in a very different way.
Then Chrystia Freeland called the prime minister and told him that he resigned as finance minister.
Trudeau announced his intention to resign January 6. Ten days later, Carney entered the race to replace it. Four days after that, Trump was inaugurated.
The new president launched a commercial war against this country less than two weeks later. Five days after that, Trudeau told a Toronto audience what many Canadians had already been afraid: that Trump’s comments on Canada became the state 51. It is not a joke.
On March 9, Carney was Elected leader of the Liberal Party. On March 23, he asked the governor general to dissolve the Parliament for a new choice.
Thirty -six days later, Carney has won her own mandate, and this vertiginous swirl of history has produced a divided result exclusively, one that can only underline the challenges that await this country and to the prime minister on the other side of the campaign.
Measured by the popular vote, this would be the best liberal result since 1980. With 43.5 percent, Carney would beat anything that the liberals received under Jean Chrétien or Justin Trudeau, even while winning majorities in the House of Commons.
In fact, 25 years had passed since anywhere reached 40 percent. But on Monday night, surprisingly, two parties ended above that threshold.
With 41 percent, the participation of conservatives in the popular vote would be the highest in the 20 years of history of the party, two higher points than when the conservatives of Stephen Harper won a majority in 2011, and the best result for any federal center of law of the center since 1988.
The last time two games won more than 40 percent of the popular vote was 1930, when the unfortunate conservatives of RB Bennett beat Mackenzie King’s liberals.
CBC News Projects Liberals will form the next government and that liberal leader Mark Carney will be chosen for his first seat in the House of Commons in his suburban driving in Nepean. Carney, speaking in Ottawa on the night of the elections, says he will always do the best to represent everyone who calls Canada home. “
Pailievre tries to look at the positive side of an impressive defeat
A moderate but challenging poilievre told the followers shortly after midnight they had “much to celebrate tonight.” But he was “aware of the fact that we still did not exceed the finish line”, that last word certainly meant establishing an argument for Pailievre to stay as the leader of the Conservative Party.
“We know that change is necessary, but it is difficult to find changes,” said Poilievre. “Time is needed, work is needed, and that is why we have to learn the lessons tonight so that we can have an even better result the next time the Canadians decide the future for the country.”
Compared to their result in 2021, conservatives obtained significant profits, in the votes and in the seats. And in any normal choice, 41 percent of the votes could be expected to translate into most seats.
But compared to where the party was stopped only four months ago, this is also an incredible investment of fortune. So what lessons will you choose to learn conservatives?
In several points of this campaign, it was argued that Pailievre should pivot. And perhaps the conservative leader could have focused in some way his rhetorical energy and political agenda on the threat Trump represents. But if Pailievre’s problem was deeper than that, if it was, how does politics and How closely compared to Trumpism – His real ability to pivot was limited.
As this campaign came to an end, the most revealing sign of where things were for the conservative party seemed to be the absence of Pailievre of the final television ads, a tacit admission that the man that the conservatives wanted to be the prime minister was not delighted by the voters that the game needed to win.
In its final survey before the day of the elections, the abacus data found That 44 percent of Canadians had a negative vision of Pailievre, compared to the 41 percent that had a positive vision. The Angus Reid Institute found An even more dim vision of the conservative leader: 57 percent of respondents said they had an unfavorable vision, while 38 percent had a favorable vision.
The 2025 elections became a marked and binary choice between Poilievre and Carney, to the detriment of the NDP and the Québécois block, and Poilievre lost.
The conservatives could be said that they only had bad luck and that they are now well positioned to win the next elections; In fact, Pailievre’s speech on Monday night, in which he theoretically granted defeat, sounded more like his attempt to start the next campaign.
But is it possible that a different conservative leader had overcome the finish line?
If the liberals are retained to a minority, the next elections could come sooner rather than later. But how much more difficult it will be for Pailievre to endure if the liberals manage to get the majority?
Anyway, if Pailievre intends that the permanent leader, at least now he will have to find a new seat: the liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy after having expelled the conservative leader of Carleton, a poilievre that he had had for 20 years.
The conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, speaking with followers in Ottawa on the night of the elections, suggests that he has no intention of giving up. At the time of his speech, Pailievre was dragging his own driving from Ontario.
Carney won Trump’s argument, and enough change argument
In the waning days of this campaign, Pailievre bowed more and more in the idea of ”change.” And understandably, if this had simply been a campaign about change, conservatives would have gained decisively.
But for half of the electorate, this was a choice about Trump, and Carney was the Decisive winner between those voters.
Crucially, Pailievre’s advantage over change was not as wide as Carney’s on Trump’s issue. Polara found Similarly, when he asked voters to decide between “change” and “stability”, for a significant number of voters who wanted the change, Trudeau’s transfer to Carney seems to have been enough.
Carney did not see or sound like Trudeau. They had different life stories, different experiences and emphasized different things, and Carney quickly moved to bury the consumer carbon tax, the most controversial element of the Trudeau agenda.
“I chose to enter politics, because I knew we needed great changes in this country,” said Carney on Tuesday morning, repeating a message that he put in front and the center when he launched his leadership campaign in January.
And although conservatives could ask how Pailievre lost this campaign, Carney must be given full credit to win it.
Before entering the liberal leadership, it was easy to imagine how I could fail. He came from the world of high finance and spoke with all the enthusiasm and style of a central banker. And I had never sought a political position before.
But at this particular moment, its quiet and manner direction seemed to be what the Canadians wanted. Despite the repeated conservative attacks, their background were seen as an asset. His limitations (including his rusty French) were forgiven. What the Canadians saw and knew of Carney, seemed to like it to a large extent: Abacus found a positive negative division of 46 percent to 34 percent for the liberal leader, leaving Carney just a little behind where was Trudeau when the liberals swept power in October 2015.
Then, where Turner only briefly revived the Liberal Party before falling in the 1984 election campaign, Carney succeeded beyond everything any liberal could have expected reasonably last December.
Now comes the even more difficult part
After campaigning in the promise to guide the country through the crisis raised by the Trump administration, Carney now faces the considerable challenge of really doing it. In the early hours of Tuesday, Carney warned that “the next few days and months will be challenging and ask for some sacrifices.” But promised to “fight” and “build” and “think big and act bigger.”
It has been, since day 1, a crisis leader. And the great range of Trump’s crisis can only be in sight. But Carney could now have a rare opportunity to unite the country around the action.
Whether the liberals finally end with a majority or minority in the camera, Carney now also faces the rare task of governing the country after more than 40 percent of voters cast a vote for the party that will be the official opposition. In his speech to liberal supporters, Carney acknowledged that “millions of our fellow citizens preferred a different result.”
Carney has contrasted the unity of the Canadians with the division in the United States, but that unit can now be proven now.
Before Freelands called Trudeau and changed the course of Canadian history, the predominant crisis was what was known as the “cost of living.” Inflation had tacked. The house was unavailable. (Economists and business groups were also worried about GDP per capita of Canada).
Time had also worn the Trudeau government: they had reached the point where most governments would have fought to win re -election. But beyond the general fatigue of the public with Trudeau, the liberals also struggled to fulfill the promise of economic and financial security, something that Trudeau himself understood as a promise that should be done if the progressives and liberals had to stop the growing wave of populism.
Carney gave the Liberal Party a new life and the new leadership. And Trump gave Carney a moment when he seemed done.
The reward is the opportunity and responsibility of addressing the old and new crises.
