Canada’s Liberals fall short of numbers, to form minority govt

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals fell short of winning an outright majority in Parliament on Tuesday, a day after the party scored a stunning comeback victory in a vote widely seen as a rebuke of US President Donald Trump.

The vote-counting agency Elections Canada finished processing nearly all ballots in an election that could leave the Liberals just three seats shy of a majority, which means they will have to seek help from another, smaller party to pass legislation.

The Liberal party seemed likely to find the extra votes necessary, but it was not clear whether they would come from the progressive party, which backed the Liberals under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, or from a separatist party from French-speaking Quebec.

Carney’s rival, populist Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, was in the lead until Trump took aim at Canada with a trade war and threats to annex the country as the 51st state. Poilievre not only lost his bid for prime minister on Monday but was voted out of the Parliament seat that he held for 20 years.

That capped a swift decline in fortunes for the firebrand Poilievre, who a few months ago appeared to be a shoo-in to become Canada’s next prime minister and shepherd the Conservatives back into power for the first time in a decade.

Poilievre, a career politician, campaigned with Trump-like bravado, taking a page from the “America First” president by adopting the slogan “Canada First.” But his similarities to Trump may have ultimately cost him and his party.

The Liberals were projected to win 169 seats of Parliament’s 343 seats while the Conservatives were projected to win 144. The separatist Bloc Quebecois party was expected to finish with 22 seats, the progressive New Democrats with seven and the Greens with one. Recounts were expected in some districts.

Elections Canada said 68.5 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots in the federal election — the highest turnout since 1993.

In a victory speech, Carney stressed unity in the face of Washington’s threats. He said the mutually beneficial relationship Canada and the US had shared since World War II was gone.

“We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” he said.

World