Canadians voted Monday to keep the country’s Liberal Party in power, after U.S. President Donald Trump seemingly doomed the country’s conservatives by launching a trade war and threatening the country’s sovereignty.
Prime Minister Mark Carney will keep his job after a hard-fought campaign in which he pitched himself as best suited to confront Trump’s aggression, defeating Pierre “Maple MAGA” Poilievre, who has spoken favorably of Trump.
The election was called just after 10:00 p.m. ET by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, though it remains unclear whether the country’s Liberals will win the election outright or require support from other parties to form a governing coalition.
Conservatives had led in the polls just a few months ago, around the time Trump took office. But as Trump continued to belittle America’s northern neighbor as the “51st state” and enacted his whirlwind trade policy, sentiment swiftly swung in Liberals’ favor.
The party was also buoyed by the resignation in March of Justin Trudeau, the former Prime Minister who had grown unpopular.
Trump himself was aware of his effect on the race, oddly bragging about it in recent days.
Carney, a former central banker, campaigned on his ability to protect Canada’s economy from Trump’s tariffs. He even met with the American president in the days before Monday’s election, rattling his own saber in response to Trump’s bloviating.
“The president brings this up all the time. He brought it up yesterday. He brought it up before,” Carney told reporters this week. “He has these things in his mind. This is not news.”
“To be clear, as I’ve said to anyone who’s raised this issue in private or in public, including the president, it will never happen,” the BBC reported.
Poilievre, a career politician dedicated to reducing the size the federal government and cutting regulations, has been compared to Trump for his criticisms of “woke ideology,” and wanting to defund the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and cut foreign aid.
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