Trump has won a second election in six months – this time in Canada

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Mark Carney celebrated his stunning win in Monday’s Canadian election with a speech in which he thanked his wife, other party leaders, and everyone who voted for him.

So what? He omitted to thank events that unfolded before he came to office in March. But the prime minister can take credit for how he grasped the nettle by signalling

• defiance – unlike more cautious European leaders, Carney faced down Trump and called out his trolling of Canada as the “51st state” at every turn;
• competence – Carney, a former central bank governor known for steering economies through crisis, cast himself as the perfect foil to Trump, market shaker-in-chief; and
• a prescription – Carney’s experience meant when he promised a wholesale retooling of the Canadian economy to minimise its dependence on the US, voters believed him.

The two Ts. Carney’s Conservative opponent Pierre Poilievre had hoped to make the election a referendum on the outgoing Justin Trudeau, whom he blamed for a “lost decade” of low growth, high prices and inadequate housing. Instead it was a referendum on Trump, who had taken to calling Trudeau “governor” instead of prime minister, and threatening to annex Canada.

Tariffs and timing too... Although Carney had until October to call an election, he dissolved parliament eight days after coming into power. This was at a moment of maximum jeopardy for the Canadian economy, with Trump imposing a 25 per cent tariff on all steel and aluminium imports a few days earlier, on top of a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods that was on hold but remained an active threat.

From the jaws of defeat. It’s still hard to overstate the scale of the comeback, especially given Carney wasn’t even a member of parliament until this week.

Swing. Long before the end of Trudeau’s decade in power, polls indicated a broad impatience with his brand of social democracy and forecast a thumping Conservative win. In the days before Trudeau resigned in January, Poilievre’s party was polling 25 points ahead of Liberals. This week Poilievre lost both the election and his seat.

Talk isn’t cheap. His Maga-lite positioning didn’t help. It became toxic as Trump’s threats against Canada grew more aggressive. Carney, by contrast, could audition to keep his new job while in campaign mode. When the US president slapped punitive tariffs on Canada’s car sector in late March, Carney said the age of deepening integration with the US economy was “over”. He promised retaliatory tariffs with “maximum impact”.

The vision. Canada “needs to think big”, Carney said on Monday night, promising

• a more competitive economy with fewer trade barriers between its 13 provinces and territories;
• a campaign to turn the country into a superpower in both clean and conventional energy; and
• twice as many new homes as built under his predecessor, made “with Canadian lumber”.

The spectre. Carney has shown there is mileage in standing up to Trump, and that’s what voters will expect too. “This is Canada. We decide what happens here,” he told his party. “We can give ourselves far more than America can ever take away.” What Carney has given the Liberals, who have already been in power for a decade, is another five years to lead the fight.

At least in some form. Liberals are projected to fall short of the 172 seats needed for an outright majority, meaning they will need to rely on other parties for support. They are expected to turn to the New Democratic Party, which had a terrible night but held onto seven seats in the far north.

What’s more… The Conservatives will be a large and unruly opposition, having racked up huge victories in oil-rich Alberta and Saskatchewan, which have long felt underappreciated by liberals in Ottawa. Canada, for all that the vote was a repudiation of Trump, is still a country divided.