Liberal Party & Mark Carney win Canada election after Trump taunts

Mark Carney remains Canada's Prime Minister as his Liberal Party won the country's general election on Apr. 29.

It marks a remarkable turnaround for the Liberal Party, staring at the face of political oblivion just six months ago, but has revived in the face of comments by United States President Donald Trump about the U.S. annexing the country.

Minority victory

At time of writing, results were still being finalised, but Reuters reports that Carney's Liberal Party had won or was ahead in 168 seats, out of a total of 343 seats in Canada's parliament, as reported by the BBC.

Canada's electoral system is a Westminster-style parliamentary system, meaning that seats are decided by first past the post voting.

The main opposition, the Conservative Party, is in second place, with an estimated 144 seats.

The remaining seats have mainly gone to the Bloc Quebecois, a regional nationalist party, and the leftist New Democratic Party.

Carney's Liberals look like they'll miss out on the 172 seats for an outright majority, but have enough of a lead that it appears no likely coalition can unseat them.

However, it means that they will likely require the support of a third party to pass major legislation, if only informally.

Turnaround

This result was nigh on unthinkable at the beginning of the year when three-term PM Justin Trudeau announced his resignation.

Trudeau's popularity has cratered in recent years along with that of the party he led, with the Conservatives leading by over 20 per cent.

Trudeau's government has been blamed for runaway property prices and a lacklustre economy.

Mark Carney was a banker with Goldman Sachs for over a decade, before moving to the public sector, working for Canada's central bank, eventually becoming its Governor.

The United Kingdom would then tap him to head the Bank of England in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and his tenure was marked by his warnings against both Scottish independence and Brexit.

Maple fury

Carney's victory has been partially credited to Trudeau maintaining a very low profile post-handover but mainly to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump took office shortly after Trudeau announced his retirement, and almost immediately engaged in a trade war with Canada, till then its closest ally, as well as suggesting that the U.S. should annex Canada and that Canadians would welcome such a move.

This prompted fury amongst Canadians, who promptly began to boycott U.S.-made goods, resulting in images of empty store shelves as local supermarkets withdrew U.S.-produced items.

Carney acknowledged the changed relationship with the U.S. in his victory speech.

He was quoted by Reuters as saying, "Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over".

The Guardian quoted him saying that "Trump was trying to break us so that American own us.

He vowed "that will never happen."

He also echoed sentiments expressed by leaders across the world, including the PMs of the United Kingdom and Singapore, saying that the system of open global trade anchored by the United States that Canada relied on "is over".

Top image via Mark Carney/Facebook