Canada’s newly appointed Prime Minister Mark Carney has called a snap election, sending the country to the polls on 28 April.
The election comes as Canada faces a trade war with the US and calls from President Donald Trump for it to become the 51st American state, issues which are expected to be top of mind for voters.
It also comes nine days after Carney, a Liberal, was sworn in as Canada’s prime minister following Justin Trudeau’s resignation.
Carney must now face Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, whose party had been leading in national polls since mid-2023, though recent polls suggest the race is now neck-and-neck.
Speaking in Ottawa on Sunday, Carney said he needed a clear, positive mandate to deal with Trump.
“We are facing the most significant crisis of our lifetimes because of President Trump’s unjustified trade actions and his threats to our sovereignty,” he said.
The Liberals – once written off for this election – now have a chance of forming a government for the fourth consecutive time under Carney.
Carney, 60, the former governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, has never served as an MP and is untested politically.
Carney made the most of his short days in office, meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron and stopping in Canada’s Arctic to announce a partnership with Australia to develop a new northern radar system.
He also ended Trudeau’s signature carbon tax climate policy, which had faced heavy criticism by the Conservatives.
- Now he will face the general electorate, which is concerned about Canada’s rapidly shifting relationship with the US, its historically close ally, as well as the country’s high cost of living.
In a campaign launch shortly before the election call, Conservative leader Poilievre, 45, sought to link Carney to the Liberals under Trudeau, who left office as a deeply unpopular leader.
He called Trudeau’s time in office a “lost Liberal decade”.
He accused the party of weakening the country by blocking resource development, failing to fund the military, and mismanaging immigration and the economy, saying its “post-national globalist ideology” made Canada more vulnerable to Trump’s trade war.
President Trump’s current and threatened tariffs on Canadian goods could usher in economic instability in the country and push Canada towards a recession.
Trump placed 25% tariffs on Canadian goods on 2 March before partially pausing them for a month. On 12 March, a blanket 25% duty on all aluminium and steel imports went into effect, hitting Canadian importers.
The Trump administration plans further global tariffs on 2 April, in the campaign’s second week.
Canada has retaliated so far with tariffs on about C$60bn ($42bn; £32bn) worth of US goods.
Carney on Sunday called the trade war with the US one of the “most significant threats of our lifetimes”.
Referring to Trump, he said: “He wants to break us so America will own us. We will not let that happen.”
Carney has promised further retaliation, though he has conceded there is a limit to Canada’s tariff response given the different size of the two economies.
Poilievre said that Canada must respond firmly to threats from the White House.
“We have to convert our anger and our anxiety into action,” he said. “We have to become strong, self-reliant and sovereign to stand up to the Americans.”
The campaign will last just five weeks – the shortest allowed. Besides the US-Canada relationship, much of the focus will be on the economy, including cost-of-living issues.
Who else is contesting?
In the Canadian federal election, voters do not cast a ballot directly for a prime minister. Instead, the leader of the party with the most members of parliament traditionally becomes PM.
Four main parties will contest the election – the Liberals, the Conservatives, the New Democrats (NDP) and the Bloc Québécois, who only run candidates in the French-speaking province of Quebec with a focus on their regional interests.
The Green Party and the People’s Party of Canada are also in the running.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said on Sunday that neither Carney nor Poilievre are the right choices for Canada, accusing them of protecting the wealthy, not ordinary Canadians.
“You deserve a prime minister you can trust to make decisions in your best interest,” he said.
The Bloc is facing pressure from a surge of support for the Liberals in Quebec.
Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet pitched his party as a voice for industries in Trump’s sights – from aluminium to dairy and lumber – that are all significant in the province.
The Greens for the first time are running with co-leaders: Jonathan Pedneault and Elizabeth May.
“We must vote now as though our country depends on it, because more than ever before, it does,” said Pedneault on Sunday.
At dissolution of Parliament at the time the election was called, the Liberals held 153 seats in the House of Commons. The Conservatives were the official opposition with 120 seats. The Bloc had 33 seats, the NDP had 24 and the Green Party held two.
