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
https://arab.news/nmn65
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’
Russian drone attack forces power cuts in Ukraine’s Kryvyi Rih, military says
- Kyiv says the campaign has forced rolling outages and emergency cuts to cities across the country, as repair crews work under fire and Ukraine relies on air defenses and electricity imports to stabilize the grid
KYIV: Russian drones struck infrastructure in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday, forcing emergency power blackouts for more than 45,000 customers and disrupting heat supplies, military administration head Oleksandr Vilkul said.
“Please fill up on water and charge your devices, if you have the chance. It’s going to be difficult,” Vilkul said on the Telegram messaging app.
Water utility pumping stations switched to generators and water remained in the system, but there could be pressure problems.
The full scale of the attack was not immediately known. There was no comment from Russia about the strike.
Russia has repeatedly struck Ukraine’s power plants, substations and transmission lines with missiles and drones, seeking to knock out electricity and heating and hinder industry during the nearly four-year war.
Kyiv says the campaign has forced rolling outages and emergency cuts to cities across the country, as repair crews work under fire and Ukraine relies on air defenses and electricity imports to stabilize the grid.
Kryvyi Rih, a steel-and-mining hub in the Dnipropetrovsk region and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, has been hit repeatedly, with strikes killing civilians and damaging homes and industry.
The city sits close enough to southern front lines to be within strike range, while its factories, logistics links and workforce make it economically important and a key rear-area center supporting Ukraine’s war effort.
