Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney addressed an enthusiastic crowd in Ottawa early on Tuesday morning, shortly after the Liberals were projected to form the next federal government.
As of around 4:30 a.m. on April 29, votes were still being tallied in several parts of the country, and it remains unclear whether the Liberals will form a majority or minority government.
Regardless of the final outcome, the projected result marks a significant achievement for Mark Carney’s Liberals, given the party had been struggling in the polls just months earlier.
At around 3 a.m., Carney declared victory in the election and took to the stage in Nepean, where he also won his riding and gained a seat in the House of Commons for the first time.
Carney’s wife, Diana Fox Carney, introduced him to the crowd.
“Thank you for choosing my husband’s vision of a positive, unified, and, above all, strong country,” she said.
Carney opened his victory speech by asking, “Who’s ready to stand up for Canada with me? And who’s ready — who’s ready — to build Canada strong? Okay, we got that settled. That’s good.”
Before going any further, the Liberal leader took a moment to congratulate the other party leaders on their election campaigns and service to the country.
“I want to salute the contribution of Jagmeet Singh […] leading our progressive values. Elizabeth May, who will be returning, Yves Francois Blanchet, and I want to congratulate Pierre Poilievre on a hard-fought, fair, good campaign — his commitment to the country that we both love.”
Those comments come as the Liberals flipped NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s Burnaby Central riding, leading Singh to announce he would resign as party leader. While Green Party co-leader Elizabeth May was re-elected in her Vancouver Island riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands, Jonathan Pedneault took fifth place in his attempt to secure a Montreal seat.
It is still unclear whether Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has managed to hold on to his seat in Carleton.
After thanking his family, colleagues, voters, and volunteers across Canada, Carney promised to be “humble” as he continued in the role of Canada’s prime minister.
“Over my long career, I have made many mistakes, and I will make more, but I commit to admitting them openly, to correcting them quickly, and always learning from them.”
It wasn’t long before Carney’s speech moved into Donald Trump territory, with the Canadian leader stating that his government’s job will be to “prepare for the worst, not hope for the best.”
He continued, “I’ve been warning for months, America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country — never — but these are not idle threats.”
“President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never […] ever happen, but we also must recognize the reality that our world has fundamentally changed.”
A little later, he revisited the same issue.
“Throughout our history, there have been turning points when the world’s fortunes were in the balance. That was the case at the start of the Second World War, just as it was at the end of the Cold War, and each time Canada chose to step up, to assert ourselves as a free, sovereign and ambitious nation to lead the path of democracy and freedom, and because we are Canadian, to do so with compassion and generosity.”
“We are, we are once again […] at one of those hinge moments of history; our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over.”
He continued, “The system of open global trade anchored by the United States — a system that Canada has relied on since the Second World War, a system that will not perfect has helped deliver prosperity for a country for decades — is over.”
“But it’s also our new reality. We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons. We have to look out for ourselves, and above all, we have to take care of each other.”
“When I sit down with President Trump, it will be to discuss the future economic and security relationship between two sovereign nations. And it will be with our full knowledge that we have many, many other options than the United States to build prosperity for all Canadians.”
After being clear that his goal was to strengthen relationships with “reliable partners” in Europe, Asia and elsewhere around the world, Carney added, “We will chart a new path forward because this is Canada and we decide what happens here.”
“We will need to think big and act bigger. We will need to do things previously thought impossible at speeds we haven’t seen in generations.”
The Liberal leader said that “it’s time” to build new trade and energy corridors, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, build Canada “into an energy superpower in both clean and conventional energy,” and continue to fight climate change.
Going back to Canada’s fractured relationship with the United States, Carney continued, “The point is — that we can give ourselves far more than the Americans can ever take away. But even given that, I want to be clear, the coming days and months will be challenging, and they will call for some sacrifices, but we will share those sacrifices by supporting our workers and our businesses.”
A little later, he said, “We are supporting our friends and neighbours in the crosshairs of President Trump through a crisis that we did not create. United, we will win this trade war and build the strongest economy in the G7, an economy that works for everyone.”
He concluded by saying, “Together, we will build a Canada worthy of our values. We will build Canada strong, Canada, free, Canada, forever. Viva la Canada. Thank you very much for this. Merci Beaucoup.”
Shortly after concluding his speech, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Carney was photographed dancing in a red hoodie to the 2009 song “Time to Win” by the Toronto band Down With Webster. The band’s music had been incorporated throughout the Liberal’s election campaign.
