Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is calling for a snap election approximately a week into his tenure heading the national government.
The prime minister requested on Sunday that Canadian Governor-General Mary Simon dissolve parliament, setting the stage for a nationwide election on April 28.
Carney said he wants a “strong, positive mandate from my fellow Canadians, adding, “There is so much more to do to secure Canada.”
Carney, who had never held office as an elected official, became prime minister after swearing an oath of allegiance to King Charles III on Mar. 14 at Rideau Hall.
He was nominated to replace former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a Liberal Party conference on March 9, where he received over 80% of the vote.
Before becoming prime minister, Carney served as governor of the Bank of Canada and then later as governor of the Bank of England. He also worked for Goldman Sachs and as the United Nations special envoy for climate action and finance.
Without a seat in the House of Commons and having never won a national or regional election, opponents accuse Carney of ascending to high office without a mandate of the people — a seamless continuation of Trudeau’s highly unpopular Liberal leadership.
Fortunately for Carney, he takes over at a time the Liberals appear to be back in the ascendancy.
After almost three years of trailing the Conservatives, the Liberals are now edging ahead, 42% to 39%, according to a recent survey. At the heart of the turn-around is President Donald Trump, whose unapologetic hostility towards America’s northern neighbor is sending the Canadian electorate into a fury.
The Liberals have a 55% chance of forming a majority government, according to pollsters. It’s nothing short of a resurrection after miserable polling results reported in January, when experts put their odds at 1%.
Trump slapped a 25% tariff on Canadian goods that do not fall under the generous carve-outs of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. This decision came after he accused the Canadian government of failing to prevent the illegal movement of migrants and narcotics across its borders into the U.S., an assertion Canadians criticize as unserious.
With approximately 1.5 million illegal immigrants having poured into the U.S. since former President Joe Biden’s inauguration, only 24,000 came through Canada. The rate of trafficking drugs such as fentanyl is similarly disproportionate at the northern and southern borders.
This onslaught proved to be too much for Trudeau to handle. He passed the torch to Carney, who came out swinging in his acceptance speech with unabashed scorn for Trump.
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre dismissed the new prime minister as a diplomatic weakling unable to stand up to the White House.
He criticized Carney after his ascension as “just like Justin [Trudeau]” and part of the “same Liberal team,” with “policies that made Canada weak and vulnerable to the US.”
Trump has been largely ambivalent about Canada’s impending elections, suggesting that a Liberal leader might make his life easier but that he ultimately gives it little thought.
“I think it’s easier to deal actually with a Liberal and maybe they’re going to win, but I don’t really care. It doesn’t matter to me at all,” Trump said of the election in a Tuesday interview.
The U.S. president has little enthusiasm for Conservatives either, taking umbrage with Poilievre’s stance against his policies.
“The Conservative that’s running is, stupidly, no friend of mine,” said Trump. “I don’t know him, but he said negative things. When he says negative things, I couldn’t care less.”
MARK CARNEY SNUBS TRUMP AND COURTS ‘RELIABLE ALLIES’ IN EUROPE
Carney is seeking to bolster relations with European allies to find stability without cooperation from the United States, making his first trips as prime minister to France and the United Kingdom.
“I want to ensure that France, and the whole of Europe, works enthusiastically with Canada — the most European of non-European countries and, at the same time, resolutely North American — determined, like you, to maintain the most positive relations possible with the United States,” Carney told French President Emmanuel Macron on the journey.
