CHARLOTTETOWN, Prince Edward Island: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, ahead in polls in the run-up to an April 28 election, renewed calls on Monday for voters to give him a strong mandate to deal with US President Donald Trump’s tariff threat.
Carney says Trump’s tariffs and talk of annexation pose a huge threat and mean that Canada needs to reduce its reliance on the United States and restructure its economy.
“We need a government that has a strong mandate, a clear mandate. We need a government that has a plan that meets the moment,” Carney said during a campaign event in Charlottetown in the Atlantic province of Prince Edward Island.
The 60-year-old ex-central banker, who had no prior political experience before running to become Liberal leader earlier this year, billed himself as “someone who knows how to negotiate ... (and) how to manage a crisis.”
The Liberal platform, which promises additional spending of around C$130 billion over the next four years, predicts that the 2025/26 deficit will be C$62.3 billion, far higher than the C$42.2 billion forecast in December.
Carney replaced Justin Trudeau, who had been in power for more than nine years and was the focus of opposition attacks about inflation, high immigration levels and a housing crisis.
The official opposition Conservatives had been 20 points ahead at the turn of the year but now trail the Liberals.
A rolling three-day Nanos poll released on Monday put the Liberals on 43.7 percent public support with the Conservatives on 36.3 percent. The left-leaning New Democrats, who compete with the Liberals for the center-left vote, trailed at 10.7 percent.
If repeated on election day, that would give the Liberals a majority of the 343 seats in the House of Commons.
Elections Canada said a record 2 million people had cast their ballots in the first of day of advance voting on Friday, which was a national holiday. Around 28 million Canadians are registered to vote.
Voter turnout in federal elections from the 1950s to the early 1990s ranged between 70 percent and 80 percent, but it has gradually declined. In the 2021 election, only 62.3 percent of eligible voters cast ballots.
Ipsos Public Affairs CEO Darrell Bricker said the advance polls could indicate that overall turnout will be higher, or merely reflect parties’ efforts to boost early voting.
“Too early to say which it is this time,” he said in a post on X.
The Nanos poll of 1,289 people was carried out on April 17, 19 and 20 and is considered accurate to within 2.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Carney ahead in polls as Canada enters last week of election campaign
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Carney ahead in polls as Canada enters last week of election campaign
- Mark Carney is looking for a strong mandate to deal with Donald Trump’s tariff threat
- Mark Carney: ‘We need a government that has a plan that meets the moment’
India to provide $450 million to cyclone-ravaged Sri Lanka
COLOMBO: India has committed $450 million in humanitarian assistance to help Sri Lanka recover from the devastating damage caused by Cyclone Ditwah, foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said Tuesday on a visit to the country.
The cyclone killed more than 640 people when it swept across the South Asian island last month, causing floods and landslides that inflicted about $4 billion in damage, according to the World Bank, or 4 percent of the country’s GDP.
Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has described the storm, which affected more than two million people, as the most challenging natural disaster in the island’s history.
Jaishankar, who is on a two-day visit, told a media briefing in Colombo he had handed a letter from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Dissanayake, committing to a “reconstruction package of $450 million.”
While $350 million will take the form of “concessional lines of credit,” the remaining $100 million will be given as grants.
Jaishankar also noted the 1,100 tons of relief material, along with medicine and other necessary equipment, sent to India’s southern neighbor in the cyclone’s immediate aftermath.
“Given the scale of damage, restoring connectivity was clearly an immediate priority,” he said, detailing the Indian military’s assistance in providing portable bridges.
Jaishankar said India would also look at other ways to mitigate the losses, including encouraging Indian tourism to Sri Lanka.
“Similarly, an increase in foreign direct investment from India can boost your economy at a critical time,” he added.
The cyclone struck as Sri Lanka was emerging from its worst-ever economic meltdown in 2022, when it ran out of foreign exchange reserves to pay for essential imports such as food, fuel and medicines.
Following a $2.9 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund approved in early 2023, the country’s economy has stabilized.
str-abh/cwl
