OTTAWA, Canada – Former Central Bank Governor of Canada Mark Carney will become Canada’s next prime minister after winning the Liberal leadership race on Sunday night. Carney told cheering supporters that “Canada will never become part of America in any way, shape or form.”
Carney received 86% of the vote, or 131,764 votes of the 151,899 ones cast from the nearly 400,000 party members who registered to participate in the leadership election.
The new Liberal leader told members that they should be prepared to fight “the most important election of our lives” where the “stakes have never been higher.”
He said, Canada is the “greatest country in the world and now our neighbors want to take us. No way,” said the incoming Canadian prime minister referring to President Donald Trump’s repeated desire for the U.S. to annex Canada as the “51st state.”
Pierre Poilievre, leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, during the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on Thursday, April 11, 2024. Prime Minister Trudeau has been under fire over the past year due to Canada’s soaring cost of housing, and is trailing badly in the polls to Poilievre, who’s the favorite to win the next election. (David Kawai/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But regardless of the Liberals having a new leader with some momentum in the polls, Canada’s Conservatives under their leader Pierre Poilievre are ready for a “change election,” said Laura Kurkimaki, who served as deputy national campaign manager for the Conservative Party during the last federal election in 2021.
“We’ve had 10 years of a Liberal government and Canadians are tired of that,” said Kurkimaki, who also served as principal secretary to former Conservative official opposition leader Erin O’Toole whose party won the popular vote but not enough House seats to win the 2021 election.
Furthermore, she said the new Liberal leader would be running on “Trudeau’s record,” and while Carney wasn’t a member of the prime minister’s government, he was appointed last September by the Liberal Party to chair a task force on economic growth for Trudeau.
“The next election will be about who is going to make life more affordable for Canadians,” said Kurkimaki. “What’s going on in the U.S. impacts that, of course, and creates economic uncertainty in Canada.”
President Trump looks toward likely Trudeau successor Mark Carney of Canada. (Getty Images)
She added that the longer Carney waits to call an election, the Conservatives get more time to launch their attack-ads against him.
During an election, parties face spending limits. But before the writ is dropped to launch the election period, parties can spend as much as they want on advertising, and the Conservatives raised more than double (about $29 million) last year than the Liberals, at about $11 million.
In an interview with The Spectator, President Trump, commenting on the Conservative party leader, said Poilievre’s “biggest problem is he’s not a MAGA guy … He’s not a Trump guy at all.”
The Canadian Conservative leader replied on X, stating: “Mr. President, it is true. I am not MAGA.”
“I am for Canada First. Always,” Poilievre posted. “Canada has always been America’s best friend & ally. But we will NEVER be the 51st state.”
