Yes, Canada's Election Was Enormously Influenced by Trump. No, It's Not As Good As It Seems.

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Hark! Today Americans across the country shall peel apart the pages of their local newspaper to read the day's biggest headline: “Canada Elects New Prime Minister.”

Ha ha, just kidding. You're probably finding out today, a day after the election, that Canada even had an election at all. It's fine—normally, I like to give Americans a bit of grievance over their solipsism, but things have been domestically on fire for the past 100 days or so. Who could expect you to pay attention to anything north of Montana? Anyway, lean back, give me your wallet, and find out what's happening to your closest ally turned frenemy.

I don't actually want to read this and just need to know who won. So: Who won?

Mark Carney and the Liberal Party of Canada won, after a snap election. They're still counting the votes, so right now it's a clear minority government, but once they finish the count, it could be a majority.

What does a minority government mean? Is this a DEI thing?

What do they teach you in American schools? Should I start by getting out a map? OK, fine: Winning a minority would mean that the Liberals fell short of the 172 seats needed to form a majority government. That would mean that they would have to (vaguely) cooperate with other parties to get things done in Parliament. But because the votes are still being counted, it remains to be seen just how powerful the Liberals actually are.

What other characters do I need to know?

Pierre Poilievre was leading the actually-quite-far-right Conservatives, and Jagmeet Singh was leading the left-of-center (YES, THAT IS HOW WE SPELL CENTRE ) New Democratic Party. The Bloc Québecois, which Canadians around the country continue to ignore, is helmed by Yves-François Blanchet. The Conservatives remain the official opposition party , with a little over 41 percent of the popular vote. The Bloc and NDP are both hovering around 6 percent of the vote, a rough showing for both parties.

Tailing pretty far back in fifth place is the Green Party, led by Elizabeth May, the little engine that could and, miraculously, did. Unlike both Poilievre and Singh, she actually won her seat for a fifth term.

What's Mark Carney's deal?

Well, against all odds, he's won this election, after never having sought any kind of public office before. (This might seem particularly Trumpian, but Justin Trudeau also became party leader without attempting even so much as a small-town mayoral win.) He's the former governor (the kind that's appointed and not elected) of the Bank of Canada, namely during the 2008 financial crisis, and he also ran the Bank of England through Brexit and the early stages of COVID. Here's a video of him , presumably using his body for the first time in his entire life.

He's the most boring man in the world, so I suspect you'll forget about him at the end of this sentence.

Wait. What are we talking about?

Nothing, honey. You're so pretty.

Is it a big deal that he won?

Yeah, I mean, depends on how you're feeling about the recent overreach of fascist states, you know?

Carney isn't a particularly inspiring choice for anyone, but he seemed the least primed to create chaos. He understands the economy and seems dutifully uninterested in playing Trump's little tariff game. And while I may make plenty of jokes about how dry it is to run the Bank of Canada, I am at least loosely reassured that he knows what a bank is and does, as opposed to Trump, who seems to think all banks are owned and operated by the offspring of Scrooge McDuck. (Beautiful family, great kids.) While Trudeau had the charming energy of a recently divorced dad who absolutely fucks , he was also embarrassingly conciliatory to both Conservative and American aggressors, including Trump. His efforts to push back on tariffs and ugly rhetoric about immigrants and Canadians came too late, and too soft. Carney was, at least, putting up a fight, one based on interest rates and what the stock market does—and not, say, vibes .

So Trump did this? My president swayed the election for Canada? God, he is so powerful.

For some people, yes! There are indeed a lot of Canadians who oscillate between voting for the Conservatives and the Liberals despite their vast differences (mostly because these parties are both huge disappointments, year after year). These people are craven dummies, but they do make up a good swath of Canada's eligible voters.

Carney also ran what a lot of people considered an anti-Trump campaign, speaking directly to whatever policies Trump is trying to put into place on Canada in these wretched early days of his unbelievably long presidency. The cost of living in Canada is really high right now, even by American standards. (That was true even last year, when Biden was still running things down south.) With Trump causing further chaos to world economies, Canadians were seeking a particularly Canadian fix: a milquetoast man in a suit who knows how the economy works and will likely do nothing revolutionary in the next few years. Everyone is just very tired.

What will this mean for My President's tariff war?

Wow, crazy that you keep calling him your president? Weird way for you, personally, to enter the record, but whatever.

Mark Carney is not good news for Trump. Of all the people on the ballot, Carney is perhaps most equipped to deal with Trump's ever-shifting understanding of reality and time and space. He is a schoolmarm, at his core. Finger wagging will ensue.

Any other good news?

Well, Poilievre not only lost the election but also lost his seat after two decades. Surprising that no one in his Ottawa riding (I think you call them electoral districts) wanted to vote for an aging Richie Rich–looking dweebus who prattled on a few weeks ago about women's “ biological clocks .”

What would things have been like if Poilievre had won?

My Canadian passport would have very quickly become a “51 ^st state” certificate, one assumes.

Does this mean that Canada is again a socialist, leftist heaven waiting for me to apply for asylum?

No, stupid: It means that the bar is in hell and we are all in the hell with the bar, hopping over it leisurely.