Canada’s new prime Minister: Americans want our country and we can’t let Trump win

Canada’s ruling party on Sunday elected Mark Carney as its new leader and prime minister, replacing Justin Trudeau, as the country faces historic tensions with the United States under Donald Trump.

Liberal Party leader Sashit Mehra said Carney, (59), a former banker and political novice, had won 85.9% of the vote.

“Americans want our country,” Carney warned in his victory speech in Ottawa on Sunday.

“We cannot let Trump win,” he added, saying Canada needed to build a new economy and establish new trade relationships.

For his part, Trudeau stressed on Sunday in a farewell speech he delivered to party supporters, that Canada faces an existential challenge due to the threats posed by its neighbor under Trump’s presidency.

“Canadians are facing an existential and economic challenge from their neighbour,” Trudeau told a crowd gathered in Ottawa ahead of the announcement of the new Liberal Party leader.

Carney, a former banker with limited political experience, was the front-runner to win the leadership of the Centre-left Liberal Party on Sunday.

Trudeau announced in January that he was stepping down from the post he had held for nearly a decade, a move he took as he faced a lot of pressure, starting with the party’s declining popularity and the approach of the next general election.

The handover between Trudeau and his successor is expected to take place within days as the new government is formed.

Carney, a former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, led his rivals in terms of public support and funding for his campaign.

One question has dominated discussions over the past few weeks: Who is the right person to confront Trump and his attacks?

“We’re facing the most serious crisis of our lives,” Carney said in his final campaign rally on Friday, stressing that everything he had gained in his career prepared me for this moment.

Carney has focused his campaign on his experience in crisis management, a strategy that appears to have paid off and given him an advantage.

Trump launched a trade war by imposing tariffs on imports from Canada, reiterating his desire for the country to become the “51st US state”.

These attacks have angered Canadians, many of whom are now reluctant to visit the United States or boycotting American products.

Stephanie Chouinard, a political science professor at the Royal Military University of Canada, said Carney had won support thanks to his economic expertise and seriousness.

“He is familiar with global financial systems and the strengths and weaknesses of the Canadian economy,” she added, noting that he has also managed to distance himself from Trudeau and his political positions.

Before the final result was announced, analysts had said that Carney’s main rival, Chrystia Freeland, had little chance of winning the leadership of the ruling party.

Freeland was finance minister in Trudeau’s government, and resigned amid a public disagreement and differing views with the prime minister on how best to confront Trump.

In addition to political and economic tensions with the United States, the new leader of the Liberal Party will face the difficult task of reuniting its ranks in preparation for the upcoming elections.

The elections are supposed to be held no later than October, but they could be held earlier, and they promise to be more competitive than expected.

The Liberals have seen their popularity decline sharply, and Canadians blame them for a number of problems, including high inflation and the housing crisis, but after trailing by 20 percentage points in voting intentions in January, opinion polls have put them in a near tie with the Conservatives.

According to opinion polls published by the Angus Reid Institute on Wednesday, Carney is the preferred candidate among Canadians to face Trump, as 43% of the participants in the poll chose him, compared to 34% who prefer Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

After the latter had made progress in recent months, it seems that the new political context has caused it to lose some momentum.