CNN
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Canadians hit the polls on Monday in an election overshadowed by tariffs, economic uncertainty and annexation threats from the United States.
Voters will decide whether to grant Prime Minister Mark Carney a full four-year mandate or give the Conservative Party a turn at the wheel after more than nine years of Liberal Party government.
Canadians began casting their ballots in the country’s easternmost province, Newfoundland and Labrador, at 8:30 a.m. local time (7 a.m. ET) Monday.
Canada’s uneasy relationship with the US has deeply influenced the tenor of this year’s campaign. US President Donald Trump’s tariffs against Canadian exports pose a grave threat to the country’s economy, and his threats to absorb Canada as “the 51st state” have enraged Canadians of every political persuasion.
“I reject any attempts to weaken Canada, to wear us down, to break us so that America can own us,” Carney told reporters in late March. “We are masters in our own home.”
Though Canadians have a diverse array of parties to choose from on their federal ballots, the main contest is between the incumbent Liberals, led by Carney since March, and the Conservative opposition, led by longtime parliamentarian Pierre Poilievre.
Carney became prime minister in March after his predecessor Justin Trudeau resigned from office in the wake of dire polls that suggested a stunning loss to come in a federal election.
A political newcomer and former governor of both the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, Carney assumed the premiership just as Trump began to apply numerous tariffs on Canadian goods.
The new prime minister took a defiant stance toward Washington, continuing Trudeau’s reciprocal tariffs against the US. As the trade war and annexation threats accelerated from Washington, the Liberals saw their polling numbers drastically reverse, quickly closing the gap with their Conservative rivals.
Carney has pitched himself as an experienced professional from the political center who can steward Canada’s economy through a period of profound economic turbulence.
“I understand how the world works,” Carney told podcaster Nate Erskine-Smith in October. “I know people who run some of the world’s largest companies and understand how they work. I know how financial institutions work. I know how markets work…I’m trying to apply that to the benefit of Canada.”
Carney has pledged to “build things in this country again” to make Canada less reliant on the US: new homes, new factories, and new sources of “clean and conventional energy.”
“My solemn promise is to stand up for Canadian workers, to stand up for Canadian businesses,” Carney said in March. “We will stand up for our history, our values and our sovereignty.”
Meanwhile, Conservative leader Poilievre has cast the election as a battle between everyday Canadians and the “Ottawa elites” who have run the country for the past nine years.
“The same people who ran Justin Trudeau are now running Mark Carney,” Poilievre told supporters shortly after Carney became prime minister. “Liberals are trying to trick Canadians into electing them for a fourth term in power.”
Running on a platform to put “Canada first,” Poilievre wants to slash government funding, streamline the country’s bureaucracy and strip away environmental laws to further exploit the country’s vast natural riches.
“Conservatives will axe taxes, build homes, fix the budget,” Poilievre said in March, pledging to “unleash our economic independence by building pipelines, mines, [liquified natural gas] plants and other economic infrastructure that will allow us to sell to ourselves and the rest of the world.”
Though Poilievre shares a populist style with Trump, he has sought to distance himself from the president over the course of the campaign. Poilievre even told Trump in a social media post to “stay out” of Canada’s election on Monday after the president urged Canadians to vote for him rather than the country’s political parties.
In the days leading up to the election, a record number of Canadians voted early, with long lines at polling places .
“I voted on the first day of advance polls and I waited 45 minutes,” said Kristina Ennis of St. John’s, Newfoundland. “I know people who waited over an hour.”
Elections Canada said in an April 22 news release that at least 7.3 million voters chose to cast their ballots before election day, a 25% increase from the 2021 federal election.
