For several years, the basic dynamic of Canada’s 2025 federal election has seemed all but inevitable. Dragged down by their inadequate response to the country’s cost-of-living crisis and the deep unpopularity of prime minister Justin Trudeau, the governing Liberals were on course for an electoral wipeout. Partly thanks to its confidence and supply agreement with the Trudeau Liberals, the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) has remained mostly stagnant in the polls, while the Conservatives — under the unabashedly right-wing leadership of Pierre Poilievre — have enjoyed an unbroken lead in the double digits.

Then, everything changed. Over the past two months, Donald Trump’s resurgence and the soft coup that forced Trudeau’s exit have upended the race. While Canada’s cost-of-living crisis persists, it has quickly taken a backseat to North America’s burgeoning trade war, and the more existential questions of economics and national identity that have come with it. In most polls, the Tory lead has either dwindled significantly or evaporated, with the Liberals rebounding ahead of a near-certain election call in the next few days.

No figure has benefited more from Canada’s shifting political sands than newly elected Liberal leader and prime minister designate Mark Carney. A former Goldman Sachs executive and central banker — having served as governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England — Carney’s rapid ascendance in Canadian politics is more or less without precedent.