Prime Minister Mark Carney says the Liberals’ three byelection wins are a “clear message” that Canadians back the government’s stance in the ongoing trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
Speaking to reporters in Ottawa Tuesday morning, Carney noted that Liberal candidates were elected by significant margins across three diverse ridings in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.
“Canadians are behind the plan of the government, which is first and foremost building strong at home, diversifying with reliable partners, building Canada strong for all,” Carney said.
The Liberals decisively swept all three byelections Monday evening, but the margins of the victories gave Carney more to celebrate than simply having three new Liberal MPs in Ottawa.
Daniel Gobeil, the Liberal candidate in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, won his seat with a nearly 20 percentage point edge over the Bloc Québécois candidate. Regis Gaudreault, the Conservative in a riding held by the Conservatives since 2015, came a very distant third – with just 12.5 per cent vote share to Gobeil’s 51.3 per cent.
Both Liberal candidates in Ontario’s Beaches-East York and B.C.’s North Vancouver-Capilano won their contests by wider margins. In North Vancouver-Capilano, Carney gets a former senior political staffer, Braeden Caley, to take a seat in the Liberal caucus.
The Conservatives, under Pierre Poilievre, were not expected to win any of the three seats. But Poilievre is likely to face renewed unrest in the Conservative movement after three uncompetitive performances.
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There are very few practical paths to power for the Conservatives that don’t include a strong showing in Quebec. On Monday night, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet declared Poilievre’s party irrelevant in the province, suggesting “there are two political parties in Quebec: the Liberal Party of Canada and the Bloc Québécois.”
That may not be much of a silver lining for the Bloc; their candidate in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, Caroline Dubé, finished nearly 20 percentage points behind the Liberal winner.
The byelections came on the heels of the collapse in trade talks between Carney’s government and Trump’s administration late last month. The prime minister has referred to the Americans’ trade actions as “war.”
An Ipsos poll conducted for Global News found that 63 per cent of Canadians backed the government’s decision to stand firm in trade negotiations with the U.S. “even if it meant higher costs and job losses.” An even larger majority, 73 per cent, supported Ottawa’s “dollar for dollar” counter-tariffs on $28 billion in American goods.
Carney was asked about Trump’s cabinet ministers’ recent attempts to ridicule Canada’s military, and Trump’s own attempt at renaming Lake Ontario.
“There’s a positive opportunity that has always existed with the United States for a mutually beneficial trade deal that respects Canadian sovereignty. But it must have those characteristics, and when the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough, and start being serious about having those discussions, we can have those discussion,” Carney said.
“It’s not constructive.”
With files from The Canadian Press.
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