So Canada votes to continue on its present leftward course
I don’t think the victory of Liberal Mark Carney as Canada’s new prime minister should be any sort of surprise. Polls have been predicting it, for one thing. But more importantly, leftward is the direction in which Canada has been going for at least ten years. Canada and the US are very different countries with very different traditions, and although I cannot say how much Trump’s bluster and threats towards Canada influenced the outcome, I think I am safe in claiming that Trump certainly didn’t help the Conservative cause in Canada at all.
In sum, however, Canadians are responsible for their own political decisions.
The Liberal victory didn’t give the Liberal Party a majority, however:
As the votes were counted through the night, the Liberals were just shy of a majority government, which would mean the governing party would need the support of what is left of the NDP and the Quebec sovereigntist Bloc Québécois party.
On a stage surrounded by dozens of supporters early Tuesday, Carney thanked Poilievre to a decidedly muted response from his supporters before turning a laser focus on Trump.
“America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country,” Carney said.
“These are not these are not idle threats. President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never, that will never, ever happen. But we also must recognize the reality that our world has fundamentally changed,” he said.
You can see why I say that Trump’s rhetoric and actions became a helpful issue for the Liberals. I’m not sure what that “decidedly muted response” is about, but perhaps there is already some buyers’ remorse, just as there is in Britain for Starmer.
The losing Conservative, Poilievre, had this to say:
“We got the highest share vote our party has received since 1988,” Poilievre added. “We didn’t quite get over the finish line, yet we know that change is needed. But change is hard to come by. It takes time.”
I’m not sure what it would take, but certainly not just time.
More insight into the election can be found in the Edmonton Journal, a Canadian paper based in Alberta (probably the most conservative area of Canada). The situation seems to have been somewhat like what happened in France and in Britain, in that the left was uncharacteristically united in order to stop the right:
Poilievre led his Conservative Party to its greatest height ever, at least if you go by popular vote. Stephen Harper’s CPC peaked at 39.6 per cent in the 2011 election. But more than 42 per cent of Canadians voted for Poilievre’s CPC in this 2025 general election.
But there was just one problem. For the first time since it formed in 2003, the CPC faced a largely united left-of-centre, with Mark Carney’s Liberals getting roughly 43 per cent of the vote.
That result will give the Liberals roughly 160 seats to 150 for the CPC, not enough for a Liberal majority, but enough to shake Alberta politics, bringing on calls for separation from angry Albertans …
The author of the piece seems to agree that Canada is basically a liberal/left nation – and that if that segment of the populace unites, the right will not be able to win. In this case, the more leftist party than the Liberals united with the Liberals to defeat the Conservatives. However, even the Conservatives tried to distance themselves from Trump:
It wasn’t until former [Conservative Party] leader Stephen Harper said he’d rather burn Canada to the ground than give an inch to the blowhard Trump that the CPC found its own footing. By then, it was too late. Carney had won over Canada’s gigantic anti-Trump faction with trumped-up fears that Trump was going to steal our land and our water.
Wow, talk about NeverTrumpers! “Burn Canada to the ground” – that’s quite an extraordinary statement from Harper. But it shows the depth of how much Trump’s recent threats are detested in Canada, even by the supposed right.
At least one of us is confused about what happened in Britain; as I understand it, it wasn’t that the left was united, it was that the right split the vote between Reform and Conservatives. The Liberals won a vast swathe of 40-30-30 plurality decisions. They ended up with less than 50% of the vote, but one of their biggest majorities ever in Parliament.
Boobah:
Yes, that’s actually what I’m referring to, although I didn’t go into enough of an explanation to make the French and British situations clear in this particular post (I’ve discussed them both in other posts). In Britain, a relatively united left beat a VERY divided right. For example, see this comment on my post about Starmer’s victory:
Just had lunch with our friend, another retired ex-power industry guy. He reports that their former colleague in Sweden is virulently anti-Trump. The contagion is worldwide. He also says (he’s British and has Commonwealth family and friends worldwide) that the British, Australian, and Canadian government health systems are barely functioning.
I don’t WANT Canada as part of the US, not unless the Canadian people can do something about their insanity problem. They’re on an unsustainable path.
a concern for the future,https://substack.com/@elizabethnickson/p-159943682
I read a report by Alex Epstein, an energy guru, in which he opines that Canda is only producing about40% of the oil and gas it is capable of. With its large oil reserves and small population, he believes Canda could be a Western Saudi Arabia.
The effects of their climate change beliefs and the desire of so many Canadians for a benevolent, socialistic sort of government has led to a decline in their wealth and economic well-being.
I believe it was Gordon Scott on another thread that mentioned that the richest province ion Canda is now poorer than the state of Mississippi.
Based on those facts, it seems undeniable that Canada would be better off with a growth-oriented government, or as our 51st state. Unfortunately, too many people will not look at economic facts and make decisions based on their best economic interests.
Back in the day (1968- 1993), I flew with a number of Canadians who had migrated to the U.S. for airline jobs. All were conservative and anti-big government. They all became U.S. citizens. I wonder how many conservatives have left or given up on Canda now.
For many years, (1994-2011) we owned a timeshare in Whistler BC.
We watched Whistler go from a free and laid-back place into a heavily regulated, unwelcoming place. That experience made me realize how easy it is for a country with such riches and capable people to be brought to heel and beggared by their socialist brothers/sisters. It’s certainly a cautionary tale.
It’s going to take a few more power failures like the one in Spain to begin to change minds about Zero Carbon. It was very close to becoming an all-continent shutdown. When Minnesota or Canada shut down in mid-winter it will be even more devastating than when it happened in a cold snap in Texas, and people died there.
A people that would repeatedly punch themselves in the face because they didn’t like something Trump said about Canada is maybe not that suited for self-government.
I am struggling to think of any election in America that was swayed by something a foreign leader said about America.
A chart I saw elsewhere suggested that it was older Canadians who drove the results and said they were motivated by Trump, which makes sense to me, since old people are who watches the TV news and reads the big newspapers here.
Trump is apparently Emmanuel Goldstein for the Administrative State… if he didn’t exist they would invent him….
“…barely functioning…”
Psst. That’s what happens when you let in all kinds of immigrants and make it your policy to provide them almost immediately with health care (along with other subsidies or outright gifts—housing assistance, food assistance)…
Shocking, I know!!—and who could have possibly foretold such results??!!
Nonetheless, if citizens have to suffer in order to ensure that you stay in power forever and ever, amen, well…that’s how the cookie (and the country) crumbles…
Barry, subsidized immigrants do damage, but also central management of a complex system doesn’t work well.
well thats curious, but not surprising,
https://x.com/paulsperry_/status/1917305668530213367
Of course, Mueller was treated as an angel, like fauci with the candles,
“America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country,” Carney said.
Huh? If my last visit to Vancouver is any indication, they’ve already given it away to the Chinese and the Indians.
It’s not as though Canada’s “Conservative Party” actually even is that. Canadians’ choices are various flavors of managerial leftist. The people who want to blame Trump for the Liberal victory either don’t know this, or count on their audience not knowing it. They can’t show that Conservatives winning would result in anything better or even different for America. Just want to blame SOMETHING on Bad Orange Man.
Orange Man Bad snookered the Canadians. Trump would have to be a political idiot not to realize that making Canada into the USA’s 51st State would permanently turn control of the House over to the democrats. However, by claiming to ‘want’ Canada… he’s ‘influenced’ Canadians to elect Carney. Predictably, Carney’s leftist supporters are sure to continue to demand that Alberta’s fossil fuel production be further strangled to death. Which will sooner or later force Alberta and even Western Canada to secede. An eventuality which will greatly benefit the US both economically and geo-strategically.
GB…is spot on.
In the basket with those fossil fuel strangulations, Canada will likely now be forced into some sort of trade deal renegotiation or face increasing tariff & import restriction pressure. Canada is hard-pressed to survive economically without the $440B in US trade. Is there enough EU, UK, or Chinese trade money to make up that difference in Canada?
As the Boss always says…wait & see.
Canada stopped being Canada when they changed their flag in ’65 and put Trudeau in office in ’68. It takes a generation or two for such things to take over … now, here we are. Being half-Canadian myself, I’ve lost touch with my Canadian relatives in the same manner my Democrat friends have faded away – probably for many of the same reasons. I don’t bother crossing the border anymore.
Miguel: thanks for the Elizabeth Nickson link. Not a fan of Carney or his wife, it would appear. Here’s her pre-election prognosis on what will happen should Carney win, as he now has:
https://elizabethnickson.substack.com/p/a-ghoul-in-a-suit-with-the-ethics
Like Geoffrey Britain, she thinks that the Prairie provinces will go their own way. We’ll see.
I found Nickson through a reference and a link on James Howard Kunstler’s old blog (“Clusterf*ck Nation”). Interesting writer. Her mother was apparently a victim of the CIA’s MK Ultra Project at the Allan Memorial Institute, a former psychiatric hospital in Montreal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Memorial_Institute
She wrote a novel about it: “The Monkey-Puzzle Tree” (1995). I used to walk past the Allan on my way to and from class at McGill. I thought it was a creepy-looking place even before I knew its history.
For those who may have missed the Steyn link from miguel (and h/t Hubert) on an earlier thread.
https://www.steynonline.com/15249/losers-gotta-lose
@Hubert: Her mother was apparently a victim of the CIA’s MK Ultra Project at the Allan Memorial Institute, a former psychiatric hospital in Montreal
MKUltra was the super-secret CIA project researching ways to brainwash and torture people — including efforts to create programmed assassins. Pretty gruesome stuff.
The Canadian effort was run by Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron.
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In January 1957, the CIA started a subproject of MKUltra in effort to broaden their scientific research. “Subproject 68”, conducted at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal under the direction of psychiatrist Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron, represents one of the most infamous and ethically controversial endeavors within the MKUltra program.
This subproject aimed to explore innovative techniques for manipulating and controlling human behavior, particularly through the methods of “psychic driving” and “depatterning”. Psychic driving involved subjecting patients to continuous playback of recorded messages, often with themes of self-improvement or identity reinforcement, while they were under the influence of powerful psychoactive substances such as LSD or barbiturates
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra
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Cameron wasn’t just some tame shrink. He was one of the most prominent psychiatrists in the world.
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He served as president of the American Psychiatric Association (1952–1953), Canadian Psychiatric Association (1958–1959), American Psychopathological Association (1963), Society of Biological Psychiatry (1965) and the World Psychiatric Association (1961–1966).
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I had to deal with my mother’s psychiatrists. I didn’t like them.
“A people that would repeatedly punch themselves in the face because they didn’t like something Trump said about Canada is maybe not that suited for self-government.” Yes, precisely. My experience with Canadiens, although (mercifully) limited has convinced me that they have a huge inferiority complex, and are therefore much inclined to take offense and react hyperbolically to all slights, especially imagined ones.
“Wow, talk about NeverTrumpers! “Burn Canada to the ground” – that’s quite an extraordinary statement from Harper. But it shows the depth of how much Trump’s recent threats are detested in Canada, even by the supposed right.”
So, let me get this straight. Citizens of a sovereign nation react strongly when the president of the superpower next door repeatedly refers to their PM as the “governor of the 51st state,” repeatedly threatens to annex said sovereign nation, and launches a full scale trade war. And that makes them “NeverTrumpers!” ??
The Kool-Aid around here is starting to get pretty strong.
Bauxite:
Why on earth would you think it’s wrong to call Harper a NeverTrumper? The statement indicates that he detests him at this point, as do many other Canadians (and Americans) – and I would wager that some of them (not Harper, however) detested him even before he started threatening their sovereignty. But threatening their sovereignty would naturally intensify that feeling. Harper – who is a member of the Conservative Party of Canada and as such was prime minister prior to Trudeau – says (and I quoted) that he “would rather burn Canada to the ground” than “give an inch to blowhard Trump.” I repeat: would rather burn his own country to the ground than give an inch to Trump. That seems to me to be the essential NeverTrumper statement, especially given that Harper is on the Canadian right.