Canada is heading into federal elections, where Prime Minister Mark Carney is vying for a chance to continue leading the country, as tensions grow with its closest neighbor. <\/p>\n
The former central banker\u2019s main competition is Pierre Poilievre, Canada\u2019s Conservative party leader whose political capital has declined as US-Canada relations nosedive amid threats from US President Donald Trump. <\/p>\n
Canadians do not vote directly for prime minister \u2013 they vote for lawmakers representing political parties in their district or riding. The party with the largest number of lawmakers elected to parliament will form the government, and its leader will become prime minister. <\/p>\n
While Carney\u2019s Liberal Party and Poilievre\u2019s Conservative Party are the frontrunners, other major political parties will also be on the ballot, including left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP) led by Jagmeet Singh, the Green Party and the exclusively-Quebec-based Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois. <\/p>\n
Poilievre was the favorite to win when former prime minister Justin Trudeau stepped down last month. But Trump\u2019s steep tariffs on Canada, and threats to its sovereignty, dramatically transformed the race. <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s decision to levy a 25% duty on Canadian steel and aluminum, cars and car parts, and threats to tariff pharmaceuticals and lumber have shaken Canadian businesses. It\u2019s a reality Carney has not sugarcoated, warning of \u201ctough days ahead\u201d with pressure on Canadian employment. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese tariffs are fundamentally damaging to the American economy and by extension to the global economy,\u201d Carney told a press conference this month after Trump announced sweeping tariffs, which partially spared Canada but sent global markets into chaos. <\/p>\n
Canadians are also grappling with the high cost of living, especially an affordable housing crisis \u2013 an issue likely to feel the sting of a trade war with the US. <\/p>\n
The Ontario Home Builders\u2019 Association warned last month that tariffs and counter-tariffs on steel and aluminum products would likely drive up the costs of construction materials, making building and buying new homes more expensive, worsening the housing affordability issue. <\/p>\n
US and Canadian tariffs on automobiles, for example, will make cars more expensive on both sides of the border, says economist Randall Morck, a professor at the University of Alberta\u2019s business school. <\/p>\n
\u201cStock prices have gone down, so everybody is poorer,\u201d he said, adding that this likely reflects investors\u2019 estimates that recession and higher unemployment could be on the horizon. <\/p>\n
Carney, a political newcomer, has not ruled out continued talks with Trump, but he has been moving to deepen ties with more \u201creliable\u201d allies. In an unusual move, his first prime ministerial trip abroad was to Europe where he spoke to French and British officials about deepening security, military and economic ties. <\/p>\n
\ufeffWhile a rookie politician, unlike his challenger, Carney\u2019s decades in finance saw him steering governments through major global crises and periods of upheaval. As governor of the Bank of England, he helped the United Kingdom navigate Brexit \u2013 which he said mirrors what can happen to the US in the face of tariffs. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have seen this movie before. I know exactly what\u2019s going to happen to them, the Americans are going to get weaker,\u201d he said at a campaign event in Ontario this month. <\/p>\n
Many Canadians see Carney as someone well-placed to navigate a trade war with a long-standing ally, experts say. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn a crisis it\u2019s important to come together and it\u2019s essential to act with purpose and with force. And that\u2019s what we will do,\u201d Carney said earlier this month as he positioned himself as the person to take on the US president. <\/p>\n
Tensions with the US have slowed the ascent of Poilievre, a career politician who served as a cabinet member in former Prime Minister Stephen Harper\u2019s Conservative government. Throughout his campaign he has aimed to appeal to working-class Canadians, painting himself as someone outside the \u201cOttawa elite\u201d and casting himself as a family man. <\/p>\n
Poilievre\u2019s fiery rhetoric about slashing tax and bureaucracy, and his populist \u201cCanada First\u201d policy have won him supporters tired of Liberal rule. But Poilievre now appears to be distancing himself fro comparisons to US President Donald Trump; he has slammed Trump\u2019s threats to make Canada the 51st US state, supported reciprocal tariffs and repeatedly declared he is \u201cnot MAGA.\u201d <\/p>\n
His decades of political experience and modest background \u2013 as the son of two schoolteachers \u2013 also set him apart from Trump, says Charles-Etienne Beaudry, political science professor at the University of Ottawa and author of \u201cRadio Trump: How he won the first time.\u201d <\/p>\n
Experts say Carney\u2019s lead over Poilievre has widened primarily because the ex-banker has been more vocal than his opponent about how exactly Canada will forge trade ties with other countries and organize retaliatory tariffs. <\/p>\n
\u201cI expect that [voters] are going to vote for the candidate that they think will minimize the cost of the trade war with the US,\u201d says Morck, the economist, pointing to the level of anti-American sentiment and distrust among Canadians. \u201cI haven\u2019t seen anything like it since the Vietnam war.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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