Millions of Canadians have come to the polls on Monday to vote in transcendental elections, the most decisive in their recent history may. For most of the 28.5 million registered voters, it was, rather than choosing candidates and political acronym, of reaffirming as a nation before the repeated threats of Donald Trump. More than a suffrage, it was an existential challenge that mass the voters and transmitted a clear message, that of the useful vote to the most capable candidate of stopping the US president. They have been national refunds and definition elections, of the country model; Historic, who have given the majority to the liberals, closely followed by the conservatives, after months leading the polls.
With the absolute majority in 172 seats, the provisional results to the edge of twelve o’clock (local time), with a little less than 57% of the votes scrutinized, give the liberals 163 seats, to the conservatives 146, 24 to the sovereign Quebequis block, 9 to the NDP social democrats and 1 seats to the green party. The clearly favorable scrutiny to the liberals hike in the constituencies that form the Great Toronto, which oscillates, as one of the US states, between one and another party and whose results were dancing much of the night and that caused moments of nerves in the headquarters of the liberals in Ottawa.
Minority or alone, the truth is that Mark Carney, who replaced Justin Trudeau in March in March, will be in charge of dealing with the US president, whose shadow the campaign has been developed. Trump himself, who in addition to imposing tariffs, wants to annex Canada as 51st state of the country, was responsible for remembering the importance of the call, mocking again from Canada a few hours before they opened the 20,000 schools distributed by the country. In a message on his Truth Social platform, the US president wished luck “to the great people of Canada” and suggested to the Canadians to vote for him. “Choose the man who has strength and wisdom to reduce his taxes by half, increase his military power, for free, at the highest level in the world; make his car, steel, aluminum, wood, energy, and all other businesses, quadruple in size, with zero tariffs or taxes, if Canada becomes the appreciated 51st state of the United States of America.” His comments were rejected bluntly by Carney and Poilievre, who despite sharing ideology with the Republican asked him not to interfere in the internal affairs of Canada.
The relative transfer of votes to Carney from third parties, the sovereignty cheese block and, above all, the NDP social democrats, for fear of Trump explains a Copernican revolution in just 36 days of the campaign, since the surveys gave in February a 25 -point advantage to the conservatives, and a defeat without palliatives of the liberals. Small parties have endured better than expected votes.
Mike, a middle -aged architect who has traditionally voted for social democrats – to the left of the liberals – has trusted Carney. “In this country there have been historical elections, but none as defining as this. It is about rethinking the country that we are and what place we occupy in the world. We depended too much on the US, we lived in its shadow, but we have realized that you cannot trust them. We have to look towards Europe, to Asia,” he said at noon after voting in a small presbyterian church in the center of the center of Ottawa. “Mine is not a useful, but convinced vote. The only strong leader capable of responding to the existential threat that looms over Canada is Carney,” he added, ensuring that he has given the national issue to other priorities such as the bad situation of the economy. “We are a country with great resources and very formed people, we will overcome the potholes, without a doubt. But the first thing is to show strength” in front of the US, he added.
Mohem, a young man of Arab origin who voted at the Ottawa City Council, explained, without revealing the content of his ballot, which moved him to go to the polls: “Voting in these elections is a matter of national and strategic security, not a political option. We have to demonstrate to the US that we are not going to harass ourselves before the threats. Any choice matters, but they matter more than ever.
“We are not for experiments”
Like Ottawa’s architect, he also opted for Vincent possibilism, a retiree who voted in a school east of Montreal. “I hesitated several weeks between the NPD [socialdemócratas] And the liberals, but it became clear that we are not for experiments. Carney knows the economic issues better. We need his knowledge to face Trump, ”said the man after depositing his ballot.
Carney, who also won the seat of his constituency – opposite that Pailievre, who lost his – has made a campaign based mainly on his economic and business credentials, politically focusing the party on an attempt to attract the discontent votes on both sides. In some aspects, such as initiatives to solve the serious accommodation crisis or energy diversification, its program resembles that of conservatives, whom it has enraged when adopting proposals, such as the elimination of an unpopular rate on carbon. But the noise and fury unleashed by Trump has made the programs of the different parties great difficulties to be heard: nobody repaired in the small print because it was, above all, to choose the gladiator to face the beast.
Carney’s victory has been halfway between the Trudeau win in his first mandate, in 2015, when he won the liberals for 184 seats against 99, and formed a solo government, and his last triumph, in 2021, with 157 seats compared to 121. As in the US, there are places where conservatives always expire with slack Montreal). The closest thing to a swing state Or the US State of the United States would be the set of constituencies in the Grand Region of Toronto, in which sometimes the next party wins, the rival.
In the midst of the general concern for the sovereignty and economic security of Canada, other opposition forces such as the NDP, (new leftist democratic party), the sovereign cheese block and the Green Party have fought to maintain their relevance, but the reinforcement of the traditional liberal-conservative alternation has marginalized them.
Beyond its reaffirmation as a state, as a market and as an economic structure resistant to hegemony – and the excesses – of the United States, the quiet revolution of Carney, which intends to free interprovincial trade and the creation of an energy, mining, transport and digital corridor of coast to coast, aims to transform the country. “Mr. Carney has demonstrated confidence that Mr. Trudeau did not have: a confidence in the existence of Canada,” he wrote premonitiously last week the Hispanicist Stephen Henighan, from the University of Guelph, in the newspaper The Globe & Mail. A threatened existence, yes, but empowered by the unanimous mandate of the polls.
