Canada's Liberals Benefit from Trump Backlash to Claim Poll Victory

• Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberals staged a major political comeback to retain power in parliamentary elections, fuelled by a backlash against U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs and comments on making Canada the 51st U.S. state.
• With almost all votes counted, results from Elections Canada showed that the Liberals had won 168 electoral districts, followed by the Conservatives with 144. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who just three months ago had looked certain to sweep the polls, lost his seat in the Ontario district of Carleton to Liberal Bruce Fanjoy.
• The Liberals, who have been in power for more than nine years, were 20 percentage points behind in surveys in January before the unpopular Justin Trudeau announced he was quitting as prime minister and Trump started threatening tariffs and annexation.
• "It was the 'anybody-but-Conservative' factor, it was the Trump tariff factor, and then it was the Trudeau departure ... which enabled a lot of left-of-center voters and traditional Liberal voters to come back to the party," said Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute polling firm.
• Despite the gains, the Liberals will not get the outright majority that Carney had sought, to help him negotiate with Trump on the tariffs threatening Canada's economy. They needed 172 of the House of Commons' 343 seats to be able to rule without the support of a smaller party.
• "Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over," Carney said in a victory speech in Ottawa. "The system of open global trade anchored by the United States, a system that Canada has relied on since the Second World War, a system that, while not perfect, has helped deliver prosperity for our country for decades, is over.

(Source: Reuters)