After Leading a Liberal Comeback, Carney Hits the Ground Running

[ad_1] 4 days after successful his first elected workplace and main the Liberal Get together because it held onto energy, Prime Minister Mark Carney laid out a timetable and a broad legislative agenda for his new authorities.

At a information convention on Friday, Mr. Carney’s massive announcement was that he would head to Washington on Tuesday to open negotiations with President Trump on financial and commerce points. The US’ 25 % tariffs on Canadian-made automobiles, metal and aluminum had, in fact, loomed massive throughout the marketing campaign.

[Read: Canada’s Prime Minister to Visit Trump Amid Trade Battle]

And on Election Day, the U.S. president had as soon as once more repeated his vow to annex Canada because the 51st state.

[Read: Even on Canada’s Election Day, Trump Again Insists Country Should Join U.S.]

However Mr. Carney mentioned that when he spoke with Mr. Trump the day after the election, Canada’s sovereignty had not come up.

And Mr. Trump publicly praised the prime minister, calling him “a really good gentleman.” However he additionally mentioned that Mr. Carney and his major opponent, Pierre Poilievre, each “hated Trump” throughout the marketing campaign.

“It was the one which hated Trump, I believe the least, that received,” Mr. Trump mentioned throughout his cupboard assembly on Wednesday. “I really suppose the Conservative hated me rather more than the so-called Liberal.”

Mr. Carney supplied few particulars on Friday about his plan for coping with Mr. Trump, saying he didn’t need to negotiate in public. However he strongly affirmed that Canada’s sovereignty was nonnegotiable.

For each the Liberals and the Conservatives, the election was a combined bag. Underneath Mr. Carney, the Liberals took their highest proportion of the vote since 1984, however solely 169 seats, falling simply wanting the 172 wanted for a majority within the Home of Commons. (Recounts and Elections Canada’s validation course of should still alter that complete.)

Mr. Poilievre led the Conservatives to their largest share of the vote and gained seats, notably in Ontario, but nonetheless misplaced.

[Read: Mark Carney Wins New Term as Canada’s Prime Minister on Anti-Trump Platform]

[Read: Canada’s Liberals Narrowly Miss Out on Majority in Parliament]

[Read: Mark Carney’s Liberals Win Canada’s Election. Here Are 4 Takeaways.]

Nonetheless, the Liberal win was some of the extraordinary comebacks in latest Canadian political historical past. Simply months in the past, earlier than Mr. Trump’s assaults on Canadian sovereignty and Justin Trudeau’s resignation as prime minister, the Liberals had been trailing the Conservatives by as a lot as 27 proportion factors within the polls.

However Canadians are unlikely to chop Mr. Carney, a former banker, any slack for being a novice politician as he learns on the job, writes Matina Stevis-Gridneff, our Canada bureau chief.

[Read: Mark Carney Swept Canada, but There Will Be No Honeymoon]

[Watch: The One Big Reason Canada’s Liberals Won]

And in Opinion, Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, a nonprofit polling group, writes that after the vote, “the world is watching Canada like some international lab rat, to watch the way it will react and reply to what our neighbor to the south throws subsequent.” Ms. Kurl argues that “Canada’s crucial at the moment ought to be to reframe its place on the earth past America.”

[Read in Opinion: The World Is Watching Canada]

For Mr. Poilievre, the frustration was compounded by shedding his seat in Carleton, the suburban and rural using within the Ottawa space he had held for 21 years. Bruce Fanjoy, a first-time politician, upset him to say the seat for the Liberals.

Mr. Fanjoy deserves credit score for placing in two strong years of marketing campaign work in Carleton. However once I went on the market the morning after the vote, I discovered that many individuals, together with Conservatives, had been nonetheless indignant about Mr. Poilievre’s assist for the trucker convoy that occupied and paralyzed a lot of downtown Ottawa in 2022.

On Friday, Damien Kurek, a Conservative, mentioned he would step down from his seat in Alberta, Mr. Poilievre’s house province, to permit him to run for it in a by-election and return to Parliament. Mr. Carney mentioned he wouldn't delay that vote, though he has the facility to place it off for so long as six months.

The brand new Parliament will begin Might 26. The subsequent day will convey nonetheless extra novelty: The speech from the throne — the federal government’s highway map to its legislative plans — will likely be learn not by the governor common, as common, however by King Charles, in his capability as Canada’s monarch.

The speech hasn’t been learn by a monarch since 1977, when Queen Elizabeth did the honors. Mr. Carney solid the uncommon occasion as an assertion of Canada’s sovereignty within the face of Mr. Trump’s designs on the nation.

“I do know that many Canadians share my enthusiasm about this,” Mr. Carney mentioned on Friday.

Then a French-speaking reporter requested him how having a member of “the British Crown” learn the throne speech would go over in Quebec. Mr. Carney struggled.

“That call highlights Canada’s sovereignty as a nation,” he mentioned in French. “It’s a really clear message being despatched to different international locations world wide.”

However when pressed to clarify how the presence of somebody largely recognized globally as Britain’s king would ship such a message, his reply fell aside.

“It underscores, that is the last word head of state, which underscores the — you already know — one of many factors I made —” he mentioned, earlier than naming “the founding peoples of Canada.”

Ian Austen reviews on Canada for The Instances primarily based in Ottawa. He covers politics, tradition and the folks of Canada and has reported on the nation for twenty years. He will be reached at austen@nytimes.com.