Carney clinches majority government in Canadian special elections

All the Conservative party had to do was denounce Trump and his tactics, and he would have won the election. Gotta be one of the biggest election upsets in Canadian history all considering

I think being an economist with an actual brain for how nations operate also factors in pretty heavily.

Hoping the U.S. sees the same swing in the fall Orban losing gives me hope

That is a huge “if”. He just needs to reinvent himself again. Maybe dye his hair and get a neck tattoo.

I think part of his thought was that Carney would lose popularity withe public shortly after the election. The honeymoon phase would end by summer and then at some point they could force a confidence vote and have another election. The only issue is that the honeymoon phase never really ended. There was tightening in the polls with some showing a small CPC lead, but within the margin of error. Now though the LPC are leading by over 10 points on average. Now Carney has his majority through floor-crossings, and rumours are that their will be more crossings from the CPC. We will see what transpires though. If Gladu can cross, there really aren't too many that can be categorically unattainable.

The astronaut? 

His interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show immediately set him apart from someone like Michael Ignatieff. It set the tone so well that this comparison was a nonstarter since then.

Ignatieff has PP charisma. 

Ignatieff is an academic; Carney was more involved in politics than Ignatieff even if he wasn't necessarily in a directly political role. 2011 was also a particularly odd election as neither the Conservative or Liberal leaders (Harper and Ignatieff, respectively) were particularly popular. In Harper's case, he was the right-wing guy, so conservatives voted for him all the same. But Ignatieff had to deal with a rather popular fellow named Jack Layton, the leader of the NDP. The NDP won the Opposition in that election - the first time a party other than the Liberals or Conservatives managed it, for the non-Canadian lurkers - but that ultimately meant nothing as Harper secured a majority. And if you look how ridings flipped in 2011 compared to the previous election in 2008, it's easy to see why: the NDP won the Opposition by winning seats in Quebec at the expense of the Bloc and the Liberals, while the Conservatives won a majority by winning seats in the Toronto metro area at the expense of the Liberals. And if you look at the riding-level results of 2011, you'll notice that a lot of those seats won by Conservatives in the Toronto area were won with a minority of the popular vote - had the left-wing vote coalesced around either the Liberal or NDP candidate, the Conservative wouldn't have won. Carney did not have that problem. There was an unpopular Conservative leader, but Poilievre, outside of his base, is near universally loathed. Harper was at least competent, Poilievre has been an attack dog his entire political career. The NDP didn't have a Jack Layton figure; instead, they had Jagmeet Singh. Nice guy, and probably did more than any other NDP leader legislation-wise since Tommy Douglas, but he *did* prop up the Liberals under Justin Trudeau for three increasingly unpopular years. By late 2024, the Liberals under Trudeau weren't just toxic, they were the political equivalent of the Elephant's Foot in the basement of Chernobyl shortly after the meltdown. The NDP even made a big show of tearing up a supply and confidence agreement they had with the Liberals... and then continued to support the Liberals on confidence votes. Lunacy. So, that's what the landscape looked like: a polarizing Conservative challenger, a highly unpopular Liberal incumbent, and a lackluster NDP leader (plus Elizabeth May doing Elizabeth May things). Trudeau made like his old man and did a walk in the snow and called it quits after the threat of a caucus revolt. And so, enter Carney. The governor of the Bank of Canada during the Great Recession. The governor of the Bank of England during Brexit. A man with a PhD in economics. Basically the personification of "I know a thing or two because I've seen a thing or two," which is rather handy when the downstairs neighbours decided to elect the shit-flinging orangutan for a second time and a bunch of the shit's headed our way. First thing he does is scrap the carbon tax that the Conservatives hated ever since Trudeau instituted it (even though the *idea* of a carbon tax is a conservative one to begin with). He ain't Trudeau 2.0, he's a competent dude who knows what he's doing. And his competitor is a weaselly loudmouth whose work experience before entering politics was being a paperboy and working in a call centre. So instead of a vote split like in 2011, there was a rally-round-the-flag effect. NDP voters knew their guy's time was up and *really* didn't want Poilievre running the show, so they went Liberal. And the Liberals and Conservatives each won over 40% of the vote, which hadn't happened since 1930.

First Lady Katy Perry and Left Shark as Lt General

Poilievre’s entire campaign was going super negative on Trudeau; when Trudeau stepped aside people expected him to start campaigning on actual policy ideas to improve the country but he had nothing and just tried to go negative on carney instead. It was a real emperor has no clothes moment - it was immediately obvious he had no plan other than mindlessly attacking his opponent.

People on the right dislike him, I think most people on the left were just tired of him. It's rare for Canada to have a political leader last beyond the equivalent of two full terms, ten years of so. Voters reach political exhaustion. Kudos to him, tho, for finally recognizing that and stepping down, to at least give the party a chance at rejuvenation before the election.

I think that excuse might work for the start of the polling collapse, but PP had months to realign. He failed at every. single. turn.

It was a combo of things. Trump and his comments about making Canada the 51st state really galvanized the country like I’ve never seen. The election became about who would be best suited to defend Canada against American aggression. And Carney was absolutely the right person for the job.

For me it was that Pierre started talking like Trump in his ideas and such. He literally had to keep his mouth  shut and do nothing and he'd of won lol. It's crazy how things changed. After the election I'm appalled that Pierre is still a leader. He lost his own seat in his own area, if that doesn't tell you something! They had to go to a hard core blue riding in Alberta to get him a seat back where they'd vote him in and not have any local representation by somebody who knows the local people so he could sit back in and be the peanut gallery. Conservatives need a new leader and thus far by Pierre still being in, he's a cancer we don't want. We dodged a bullet.

Not entirely, I would credit Trump as much as I would Pierre.

The Hitler Paradox. Killed millions of innocent people but also killed Hitler.

And the CPC just keep doubling down on lil pp too. It is so weird. Almost all the press/media in Canada is tilted in CPC’s favour and even those hacks cannot polish that particular turd. Let’s see what Carney can do with this, I guess.

In fairness to PP, it’s also Trump’s reverse Midas Touch: everything he touches turns to shit. There was some nefarious footsie going on between GOP and CPC.

I remember when the UK voted for Brexit thinking the same. “Surely people will see this and realize we have to get out and vote against the populist liars.” I thought that Brexit would save the US from Trump.

South Australia is a state government so it's a bit different I guess

Trudeau was too inexperienced because he was "just a drama teacher". Carney was too experienced and just a "rich banker" (oh and degrees from Harvard and Oxford, boo education)

Case in point: the cons are getting mad at Carney for pushing for policy THEY WANT and accusing him of stealing their platform Like.... Guys.... He's putting things you WANT. You should be HAPPY about that lol, but no, because it's a liberal it's bad

They asked him to run for them a few years ago - so you are right.

Children are more tolerant than them.

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." That's the GOP strategy in the USA. There are rich people in Canada who would love to do some variant of it here.

Fun fact no one knows- Scheer used to live in my sister's neighbourhood. He had a dog and when he walked it and it pooped, Scheer was one of those idiots that puts the poop in a bag and hangs it on a nearby tree.

Had O'Toole not got stuck with a COVID election I think he could've de-throned Trudeau.

He is not capable of that. He is a career backbencher that somehow ended up as the favourite mouthpiece of the F*** Trudeau morons. He wouldn’t be able to articulate a genuine PC platform under any circumstances. He’s just not a smart man. And you can see that he knows it.

He made his career being an attack dog back bencher, it's all he knows how to do. He also has no real accomplishments in his career, so he doesn't really have anything to point to. His entire strategy is complaining about things most of us know are issues but not providing any real policy solutions other than "lower muh taxes".

His campaign manager wore the red hat. The well was poisoned and PP didn't want to risk losing any voter base. The old PC movement died with Joe Clark - irony here is Carney is employing a lot of the old PC tactics under the Liberal label like shrinking government and trade deregulation.

This. People talking about Carney support really are counting votes against Polievre. The NDP just elected a new leader way more left than Jagmeet was because a significant amount of Canada isnt satisfied with how right wing Carney is. Like yeah he’s better than PP and he’s competent enough dealing with Trump, but he’s an austerity guy handing out government money to private corporations for neoliberal public-private partnerships, gutting environmental regulations, and capitulating to a genocide. Canada is full of people who want better than Carney but also recognize that our electoral system (that Carney has said he has no interest in fixing) basically forces us to vote for him or get the worst of all options.

You can almost certainly count on America f****** it up. If not because they are just inherently hopeless, then because the republicans are gonna do all they can to disrupt the election process.

I respectfully disagree. I want the opposition to be rational, useful, motivated to improve the country, the while being a real threat to the governing party, so they're kept in check and motivated. It's important we have real options when voting. I'd like to be able to consider both parties. Currently, I can't.