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New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Sunday called a snap election for April 28, kickstarting a campaign that will be defined by US President Donald Trump.
The campaign will last just five weeks — the shortest period allowed — with a new round of global tariffs imposed by Washington due to come into effect in week two.
Carney said he has already begun to “fight the Americans,” describing the country’s trade war with the US as among the “most significant threats of our lifetimes.”
Trump placed a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods on March 2, before partially pausing them for a month, and on March 12, a blanket 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports came into effect — hitting the Canadian industry heavily. Ottawa has retaliated with by placing levies on around $42 billion worth of US imported goods so far.
Carney’s tough talk tapped the wave of nationalism that Trump has inspired: “Rage is the new Canadian mood,” The Globe and Mail declared. That anger, which has already helped Carney’s party stage a stunning comeback in the polls, could give him the edge.
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Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigned a deeply unpopular leader, but his party, which was trailing by 20 points in the polls at the start of the year, is now neck-and-neck with the opposition.
Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre has sought to blame the Liberal Party, and its “post-national globalist ideology” under Trudeau as having made Canada more vulnerable to Trump’s trade war, the BBC wrote. However, supporters and critics have consistently aligned Poilievre with Trump, leaving the party now to battle the widely held perception that Canada would yield to his demands under the Conservatives.