Mark Carney won’t change Canada for the better

Apparently Canada hasn’t taken enough punishment yet. After a close, hard-fought race that extended into the wee hours of the morning, Mark Carney and the Liberals came away with enough seats to form a minority government. They will form Canada’s fourth consecutive Liberal government since 2015.

The Liberals maintained their edge, in part, thanks to the collapse of the New Democratic party, whose leader Jagmeet Singh resigned. An election day message from Donald Trump on Truth Social, calling for Canadians to join the US, may also have pushed undecided voters towards Carney, whose entire campaign was founded on the idea that he was the best candidate to protect Canada from Trump.  

Though the opinion polls were not in their favor, the Conservatives did better than expected, and as of Monday night were on track to earn 27 more seats than they previously held. But despite an exceptionally disciplined campaign and a major effort to engage with voters, they didn’t manage to push past the Liberals. In his concession speech, Poilievre spoke well and hearteningly to his supporters, reminding them that “change takes time” and congratulating them on a hard-fought campaign.

Carney’s victory speech, on the other hand, had a strange air of unreality about it. A rather uncomfortable-looking group of supporters was arrayed behind him, like a backdrop of sample citizens, as he gazed intently into the camera and preached, in the swelling tones of the televangelist, on big, soulful topics like humility and ambition and unity and sacrifice.

Once the speech got down to meat and potatoes, it was just what you’d expect from the High Priest of Project Fear. Lest any of his voters fall into the error of thinking the Liberals will bring better days, he disillusioned them. Dark days are coming. “As I’ve been warning for months,” he chanted in an earnest crescendo, “America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country.” President Trump, he insists, is trying to break Canada, so that America can own it.

Watch the setup: there’s an emergency, there’s a crisis, we have to be afraid… And then, comes the kicker: “But we also must recognize the reality that our world has fundamentally changed.” Aaand… there we go. There go the gas cars, the red meat, the cash currency, and the life as we know it. Canada’s world may not have fundamentally changed yet, but with Prophet Carney at the helm, it’s sure going to. 

Canadians can count their blessings in that Carney only got a minority. If Conservatives can enlist the aid of the Bloc Quebecois, some of the worst may be averted. But the Bloc is not known for its Western sympathies, and that’s where the next bout of trouble is coming from. Alberta is sick and tired of Liberal governments that stifle its energy-based economy, while raking in tax money and equalization payments for their own purposes.

Rumblings of secession have been going on for years, but matters have escalated to new levels of late, especially during the recent tariff war. A fourth straight Liberal term may be all Alberta needs to organize a referendum and threaten to separate – but go where? To become Donald Trump’s cherished 51st state?

It would be a great and terrible tragedy for Canada to break up. And Carney, with his soothing patter and the light of prophecy in his eyes, is, despite all his protestations, the last man to prevent it from happening.