Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Sunday called early elections for April 28, pledging to defeat US President Donald Trump’s drive to annex the US’ huge northern neighbor.
Carney, a former central banker, was chosen by Canada’s centrist Liberal Party to replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister, but he has never faced the nation’s broader electorate.
That is to change as Carney brought parliamentary elections forward several months from October. He made it clear that the barrage of trade and sovereignty threats coming from the US president would be the focus of his campaign.
Photo: Reuters
“I’ve just requested that the governor general dissolve parliament and call an election for April 28. She has agreed,” Carney said in a speech to the nation, referring to King Charles’s representative in Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth.
In power for a decade, the Liberal government had slid into deep unpopularity, but Carney is hoping to ride a wave of Canadian patriotism to a new majority.
“I’m asking Canadians for a strong, positive mandate to deal with President Trump,” Carney said, adding that the US president “wants to break us, so America can own us. We will not let that happen.”
“We are facing the most significant crisis of our lifetimes because of President Trump’s unjustified trade actions and his threats to our sovereignty,” Carney said.
“Our response must be to build a strong economy and a more secure Canada,” he added, pledging not to meet Trump until he recognizes Canadian sovereignty.
Trump has riled his northern neighbor by repeatedly dismissing its borders as artificial and urging it to join the US as the 51st state.
The ominous remarks have been accompanied by Trump’s trade war, with the imposition of tariffs on imports from Canada threatening to severely damage its economy.
Domestic issues, such as the cost of living and immigration usually dominate Canadian elections, but this time one key topic tops the list in the nation of 41 million — who can best handle Trump.
The US president’s open hostility toward his northern neighbor — a NATO ally and historically one of his nation’s closest partners — has upended the Canadian political landscape.
Trudeau was deeply unpopular when he announced he was stepping down, with Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives seen as election favorites just weeks ago, but since Trump’s threats, the polls have spectacularly narrowed in favor of Carney’s Liberals and analysts are now describing the race as too close to call.
“Many consider this to be an existential election, unprecedented,” said Felix Mathieu, a political scientist at the University of Winnipeg.
Poilievre, 45, is a career politician, first elected when he was only 25. A veteran tough-talking campaigner, he has sometimes been tagged as a libertarian and a populist.
Poilievre — seen by some as too similar to Trump in style and substance — set the tone on Sunday.
“I want the opposite of what Donald Trump wants,” the Conservative leader said in Toronto, promising to base his campaign on bread-and-butter economic issues and the worries of “regular people.”
Commencing his campaign in Labrador and Newfoundland, Carney told supporters that the nation needed “big change” to turn its economy around and “fight Donald Trump’s tariffs.”
Carney, 60, has spent his career outside of electoral politics. He spent more than a decade at Goldman Sachs and went on to lead Canada’s central bank and then the Bank of England.
Smaller opposition parties could suffer if Canadians seek to give a large mandate to one of the big two, to strengthen their hand against Trump.
The US president professes not to care who wins the Canadian election, while pushing ahead with plans to further strengthen tariffs against Ottawa.
“I don’t care who wins up there, but just a little while ago, before I got involved and totally changed the election, which I don’t care about ... the Conservative was leading by 35 points,” Trump said.
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
COMFORT WOMEN CLASH: Japan has strongly rejected South Korean court rulings ordering the government to provide reparations to Korean victims of sexual slavery The Japanese government yesterday defended its stance on wartime sexual slavery and described South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese compensation as violations of international law, after UN investigators criticized Tokyo for failing to ensure truth-finding and reparations for the victims. In its own response to UN human rights rapporteurs, South Korea called on Japan to “squarely face up to our painful history” and cited how Tokyo’s refusal to comply with court orders have denied the victims payment. The statements underscored how the two Asian US allies still hold key differences on the issue, even as they pause their on-and-off disputes over historical
Decked out with fake crystal chandeliers and velvet sofas, cosmetic surgery clinics in Afghanistan’s capital are a world away from the austerity of Taliban rule, where Botox, lip filler and hair transplants reign. Despite the Taliban authorities’ strict theocratic rule, and prevailing conservatism and poverty in Afghanistan, the 20 or so clinics in Kabul have flourished since the end of decades of war in the country. Foreign doctors, especially from Turkey, travel to Kabul to train Afghans, who equally undertake internships in Istanbul, while equipment is imported from Asia or Europe. In the waiting rooms, the clientele is often well-off and includes men
RSS