Why the world will watch Mark Carney and the Canadian election
A victory for Mark Carney in the Canadian election would highlight the dangers and new challenges for conservative parties around the world.
Canada’s election must be seen as an early marker of how the world will respond to Donald Trump’s bid to change it, with a remarkable victory for Mark Carney now looming as a warning for conservative parties wrong-footed by the Trump phenomenon.
Instead of inspiring a conservative revival, the Trumpian agenda is being fiercely resisted in Canada and has helped lift the Liberal Party from a more than 20-point polling deficit last year to the brink of an unlikely win against Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives.
This is a stunning turnaround that will attract interest across the world, including in Australia, which faces its own election on Saturday. The Canadian contest has been framed by Carney as a referendum on who can best manage a capricious and ambitious US President on track to overhaul the global order.
The polls suggest he is likely to reclaim majority government by winning more than 172 seats in Canada’s House of Commons after running a strong nationalist campaign, decrying the Trump tariffs as the “greatest crisis of our generation”.
Carney has woven his personal story into the political narrative. While lacking in political experience, he has drawn on his economic experience as the governor of the Bank of Canada during the global financial crisis and of the Bank of England during the Brexit transition to portray himself as the right man for the times.
The strategy has worked, and attempts to frame him as another version of Justin Trudeau – whom Carney replaced as prime minister only six weeks ago on March 14 – have failed to cut through.
A victory for Carney will be seen as a win engineered by Trump himself. The Canadian leader has moved quickly to respond to the economic crisis in Canada, where 77 per cent of goods exports are destined for the US.
He has campaigned on defending Canada’s national sovereignty while promising to more safely navigate the economic crisis ignited by the new economic nationalism in Washington. He warns that America has changed and can no longer be viewed as a reliable trading partner. Canadians clearly believe him.
“The old relationship we had with the United States – based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military co-operation – is over,” Carney said last month.
Carney has worked to diversify trade partners, remove internal trade barriers and shore up the borders, while also announcing tax measures to help improve cash flow for businesses struggling under the weight of the US tariff changes. He is seeking to ride a new wave of Canadian nationalism into office. He is also pushing back against Washington, introducing a 25 per cent retaliatory tariff on US-made cars and trucks. The extra revenue from retaliatory tariffs will be used to support Canadian workers affected by the trade war.
The lessons from the Canadian election, with results due on Tuesday AEST, will reverberate in Australia, where Peter Dutton’s Liberal Party has also struggled to adjust to the new realities of the Trumpian revolution.
Like the conservatives in Canada, the Liberal Party has faced declining support in the polls leading up to Saturday’s election.
While the impact of Trump’s policies do not have the same power in Australia as they do in Canada – a country facing a genuine economic emergency – warning signs for the Liberals remain.
The Trump revolution in Washington is working to the advantage of incumbent governments that are responding to the trade war by promising unity and stability. But it also poses new challenges for conservative parties which risk finding themselves wrong-footed by the Trumpian revolution and typecast as sympathetic to a radical new agenda promoted by Washington.