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Donald Trump won’t have Justin Trudeau to kick around any more. Canada’s ruling Liberal party picked Mark Carney — a former central bank governor known as a competent technocrat — as its new leader. He’s likely be sworn in as prime minster within days, replacing Trudeau.
Observers said Carney is expected to call an election almost immediately — one is due no later than October this year — which must be held on a Monday no more than 51 days after being announced. That would mean Parliament, currently suspended, wouldn’t resume sitting on March 24 as scheduled.
The election is likely to turn on a single issue: Who can best battle Trump over tariffs and resist his threats to annex the country as “the 51st state.” So far, Canada’s famously fickle — and now irate — voters have shown more trust in the Liberals, who are leading the opposition Conservatives in opinion polls for the first time since 2021.
“The next federal election is the most important of my lifetime,” said Ravi Kahlon, British Columbia’s housing minister and house leader for the left-of-center New Democratic Party-led government. While he doesn’t care who leads the federal Liberal party, he wants the next PM to be someone who will stand up for Canada. “People want someone in there who will fight for the country and not cave,” he said before Carney’s selection was announced.
Given Trump’s public derision of Trudeau, who he slights by calling “governor,” the selection of a new Canadian PM leader may change the political temperature. Carney, a former head of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, is known as a careful operator able to manage difficult political situations.
Main opposition leader Pierre Poilievre will have to battle public perceptions that he’s ideologically too close to the U.S. president and so he wouldn’t take a sufficiently tough stance in talks. A pivot is possible: Premier Doug Ford of Ontario won reelection after flipping from public Trump fan to tariffs foe.
The trade war will probably stay live during the campaign, with Trump only suspending some duties until early April and then on Friday threatening new levies on Canadian softwood lumber and dairy products. S&P Global (SPGI-3.88%) economists cut their GDP forecast for Canada in the event of a long dispute.
