Spirited Victory

Ironically, US President Donald Trump’s threat to reduce Canada into the 51st state of the United States of America has become instrumental in the remarkable victory of Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Liberal Party in the just concluded Canadian election.

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The Centre-Left party of Carney has got a reversal in electoral fortunes, courtesy Trump’s audacious announcement after he assumed office for the second term in January that Canada would be merged with the USA. Predictably, Carney made his neighbouring country his main electoral plank that seems to have paid rich dividends. His victory speech reflected it as well as the mood of Canada as a whole. He asserted: “President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never ever happen.”

Trump has also queered the pitch for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party which looked highly probable to win the polls due to general dissatisfaction with the state of the Canadian economy and almost a decade of Liberal government under then leader Justin Trudeau whom Carney replaced just before the election.