LP_468x60
on-the-record-468x60-white

Prime Minister Mark Carney is “fronting the same cast of characters that drove a wedge between east and west under (Justin) Trudeau,” Preston Manning says.

OTTAWA — A political titan in western Canada is vowing to examine all options for the region’s future, including “independent-oriented proposals,” after Monday’s federal election result.

It’s part of Preston Manning’s plan to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, after the federal Liberals secured a fourth consecutive term in power.

“Polling is currently being done to ascertain whether the election of yet another Liberal government has increased the growing estrangement of western Canada from Ottawa and the Rest of Canada,” the founder of the defunct Reform party said in a statement released on Tuesday.

He did not provide further detail on efforts to gauge public opinion on the issue, such as who is funding that project.

Throughout the campaign, the former leader of the federal opposition warned a Liberal win could trigger a wave of western alienation, going so far as to call Liberal Leader Mark Carney “a threat to national unity” in a Globe and Mail op-ed.

Speaking by phone to National Post on Tuesday, he framed Carney’s ascent to power an existential threat.

“Carney can throw on an Edmonton Oilers jersey and call himself an ‘Alberta boy’ as much as he wants, but the fact of the matter is that he’s fronting the same cast of characters that drove a wedge between east and west under (his predecessor, former prime minister Justin) Trudeau,” said Manning.

Manning added Carney still hasn’t committed to reversing some of Trudeau’s most regionally divisive policies, such as the federal cap on oil and gas emissions.

His statement did raise the possibility of a policy shift, while doubting the Liberal leader will seriously pivot Ottawa’s approach to the west.

It references Carney’s “assurances that his minority government will make a 180 degree turn on climate change, pipelines, unregulated immigration, proliferate deficit spending, and other distinguishing characteristics of the discredited Trudeau regime.

“The first test of the truthfulness and believability of those assurances will come via the content of the June Throne Speech and the follow-up actions of the federal government,” he wrote.

Manning told National Post the stubbornness of regional divisions was visible from the electoral map.

”All you have to do is look at the swath of blue cascading from Manitoba all the way into British Columbia.”

Manning said that he was in the early stages of putting together “Canada West Assembly” to deliberate next steps, adding he hoped to bring in participants from all four western provinces and the three territories.

He added the assembly would most likely meet for the first time in the summer, after Carney had a chance to give his first throne speech.

The assembly would “provide a democratic forum for the presentation, analysis and debate of the options facing western Canada (not just Alberta),” he wrote.

Those options could range “from acceptance of a fairer and stronger position within the federation based on guarantees from and actions by the federal government, to various independence-oriented proposals, with votes to be taken on the various options and recommendations to be made to the affected provincial governments.”

Manning said that the initiative is “operationally independent” from the post-election panel being put together by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, but added that he welcomed the participation of members of the panel.

Smith said on Tuesday that she was “deeply frustrated” with the Liberal win but would let the people of Alberta take the lead on how to respond.

The Liberals picked up seats in three of the four western provinces, and looked poised on Tuesday to win the same number of seats in Alberta that they did in the last federal election in 2021.

National Post

rmohamed@postmedia.com

Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our politics newsletter, First Reading, here.


Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump could be meeting soon.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney will have his first in-person meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in the “near future” after both leaders spoke on the phone Tuesday.

In a readout of the call

, Carney’s office said that Trump congratulated the newly elected prime minister. The release also said both leaders agreed to work together as independent nations.

“The leaders agreed on the importance of Canada and the United States working together – as independent, sovereign nations – for their mutual betterment. To that end, the leaders agreed to meet in person in the near future,” notes the readout.

The call came less than a day after Carney led the Liberals to a fourth straight term and a third consecutive minority government.

Neither the White House nor Trump’s social media accounts have yet published their readout of the conversation with Carney.

The Canadian readout did not mention if Carney spoke to Trump about current American tariffs on foreign-made automobiles and steel and aluminum imports, both key Canadian exports to the U.S.

Trump was expected to sign a new executive order Tuesday afternoon relaxing some his 25 per cent tariffs on autos and auto parts in a significant reversal as the import taxes threatened to hurt domestic manufacturers.

Earlier in the day, Carney also spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron.

“Following the Prime Minister’s meeting with the President in Paris last month, the two leaders discussed their ongoing work to deepen defence and commercial ties between their nations,” reads the statement by PMO.

National Post, with additional reporting from The Canadian Press.

cnardi@postmedia.com

Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our politics newsletter, First Reading, here.


Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks to his supporters after losing the Canadian Federal Election on April 29, 2025 in Ottawa, Canada.

OTTAWA — While Conservatives weren’t quite able to beat the Liberals in Monday’s federal election, they can take some solace in the fact that grade school students brought it home for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre in the 2025 Student Vote.

The students’ votes led to a Conservative minority government, with Pierre Poilievre’s party earning a hypothetical 165 seats from 36.4 per cent of the vote. This is a major jump from the 2021 Student Vote results, where the Conservatives placed third. The Liberals earned the second most seats among students this time around, securing 145. Essentially, the results between the main two parties were flipped from the current real-world projections.

While the NDP had a disappointing election, they performed better in terms of seat count among student voters. The NDP won 13 seats, with 14.5 per cent of the vote to barely hold onto official party status in the student vote scenario.

This is far from a positive for the NDP’s future though, as they lost hypothetical 95 seats from the 2021 Student Vote. They previously earned 108 hypothetical seats, which was only ten fewer seats than the governing Liberals.

The Bloc Quebecois did slightly worse than their projected seat total, earning 17 seats from 2.19 per cent of the vote. The Green Party earned 7.5 per cent of the students’ votes, giving them two seats, with longtime party leader Elizabeth May and Kitchener Centre incumbent Mike Morrice maintaining their spots in the hypothetical Parliament.

The Student Vote is an initiative run by CIVIX, an organization dedicated to “strengthening democracy through civics and citizenship education for school-aged youth.” For the vote, they polled over 900,000 students across the country, with representation in each riding.

CIVIX, in collaboration with Abacus Data, also ran the Student Budget Consultation between December 2024 and March 2025. This consultation surveyed students about what the government’s financial priorities should be. The most important issues per surveyed students were the cost of living, housing and health care.

National Post

Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our politics newsletter, First Reading, here.


Liberal Bruce Fanjoy won the seat for the Carleton riding, beating incumbent Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre

If all politics is local, Bruce Fanjoy had a headstart in his race against a national figure. Looking him up in the archives of his local newspapers turns up the kind of stories people cut out and put on the fridge.

Here he is, an assistant coach of for 10-year-old hockey players, successfully encouraging them to raise money for pediatric palliative care at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario by reading 100 books in 30 days, and then meeting Roch Carrier and getting a signed copy of The Hockey Sweater as a reward. Here he is volunteering with Bike Ottawa at a vigil for a cyclist killed by a motorist.

And here he is, a hockey dad with some connections, getting former Ottawa Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson in touch with a 12-year-old boy who broke two vertebrae playing defence for the local peewee AA team.

That kind of reputation is campaign gold on the front porch of ridings like Carleton, south of Ottawa, even if you are running against

Pierre Poilievre

, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, who has held it since it was recreated in 2015 out of three ridings, one of which he also held since 2004, seven wins in all. Fanjoy estimated he knocked on 15,000 doors before the campaign even began, often encountering skeptics.

 Longtime Liberal supporter Nancy Mundt chats with Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy on her front step.

“One of the impacts of someone holding a riding for as long as Pierre Poilievre has held Carleton is some people forget it doesn’t have to be that way,” Fanjoy recently

told the Ottawa Citizen

. “I believed from the beginning that there was a path to victory…. A lot of people are looking for an alternative. I wanted to make sure I gave Carleton a strong, thoughtful, solutions-focused alternative to someone who hasn’t accomplished anything in 20 years of service.”

Fanjoy has a business degree and previously worked in marketing for a large consulting firm. His wife Donna Nicholson is a cardiac anesthesiologist and professor at the University of Ottawa. They have two grown children. Lately, he has overseen the construction of a new family home in Manotick, on the Rideau River near the historic mill, built according to “passive” design principles to minimize the home’s energy consumption, which he promotes as an environmentalist.

National politics has a way of feeling local for the people of Carleton, and local politics has a way of feeling national.

It wasn’t just that the local MP was a prime minister in waiting for so long. It was also that the way he got there involved giving sympathetic attention to the Freedom Convoy that occupied downtown Ottawa in 2022.

Local attitudes on the convoy protest were not exactly the same as some national attitudes, the ones about pandemic skepticism and federal government overreach that aligned with Poilievre’s project to form a government to replace Justin Trudeau and his Liberals. Donald Trump’s trade wars were a shock campaign issue that focused attention on Poilievre’s response, evidently to Fanjoy’s benefit.

 Lawn signs for Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal candidate for House of Commons in the riding of Carleton, sit across from a polling station in Ottawa, Ontario on April 28, 2025.

In the end, it was Poilievre who got replaced. The race was tight, but

Fanjoy won by almost 4,000 votes

, with more than 50 per cent of the total in a race that included 89 other candidates in a strange electoral reform protest that made ballots awkwardly long.

In a speech late on election night, Poilievre spun an upbeat message about high vote share and increased seat count that bodes well for the party he pledged to continue leading. But for a leader to lose his own seat is electoral embarrassment, especially when it comes as a late surprise.

Before the election, Fanjoy told National Post’s Stephanie Taylor that he saw Poilievre’s status as an apparent prime minister in waiting as an opportunity.

“Carleton, because of circumstance, has a remarkable opportunity to make a statement on the type of politics and direction that we want Canada to go in,” he said. “Although it’s technically just one of 343 ridings in the election, this one carries extra significance.”

Rumours started spreading that Carleton was in trouble for the Tories just before election day, with stories that internal Liberal polling suggested a possible upset, a ten point Conservative lead dropping to five. Then, Carleton reported the highest advance turnout in the country. Something was happening.

The Ottawa Citizen reported Fanjoy was unavailable for comment when his close victory was first projected by media “because it’s 4 a.m.” But he made a brief speech to supporters around midnight at the Manotick Legion, when victory was starting to look possible.

“I will never forget what this feels like,” he said.

Poilievre, watching the results in downtown Ottawa having already conceded the Liberals won the election that so recently seemed his to lose, probably felt the same thing.


Diana Fox Carney introduces her husband, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Monday night at TD Place in Ottawa.

As election day got underway on Monday, and went well into the night, Liberal Leader Mark Carney’s wife, Diana Fox Carney, remained by his side. They were seen together at the polls in Ottawa in the afternoon. And then, as Carney’s Liberals were voted into power, she was in the crowd as he addressed the country in his victory speech.

 Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his wife, Diana Fox Carney, wait to cast their vote on Election Day on April 28, 2025 in Ottawa, Canada.

“Thank you, Diana. Thank you, Diana, for your work on this campaign. Thank you, Diana, for the commitment and compassion you bring to everything that you do,” Carney, 60, said in his speech Monday night. “Tonight simply would not have been possible without you, and without the support of our four children who inspire me to service every single day.”

Here’s what to know about Fox Carney.

Who is Diana Fox Carney?

Fox Carney is a climate activist and economist, who holds both U.K. and Canadian citizenships.

She

attended Oxford University

, graduating with a master’s of arts degree in philosophy, politics and economics in 1987. She earned a master’s of arts degree in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania in 1988. She later returned to Oxford and went on to earn a master’s of science degree in agricultural economics in 1992.

It was at Oxford where Fox Carney met the future Liberal leader, the

Toronto Star reported

. According to the

university’s Ice Hockey Club

, Fox Carney was an excellent hockey player “known for her ability to skate rings around her opponents and move effortlessly through the opposing defensive line.”

Fox Carney moved to Canada after she

married

the future prime minister in 1994.

Where has Diana Fox Carney worked?

She has worked in Canada and the U.K. at various think tanks dedicated to climate-related policy. However, she started her career in Africa.

According to

her bio at the Balsillie School of International Affairs

, where she was a fellow, Fox Carney worked in Zanzibar for the U.K. government.

She then went on to became a vice president of Canadian think tank, Canada 2020, dedicated to sparking conversations about the country’s future and hosting events to inspire change. In 2013, she addressed Parliament about income inequality.

 Canada’s Prime Minister designate Mark Carney and his wife Diana Fox Carney arrive for his swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall.

“One of the key features of income inequality is that it tends to be self-reinforcing, so that the poorest groups are less able to invest in their children and in their health and education and in other things that make for success, so inequality is typically transmitted from generation to generation,” she said,

as reported by OpenParliament

. “Absent policy action, we can expect income inequality to continue to rise.”

Fox Carney served as the executive director of

Pi Capital, a membership club

that “convenes extraordinary events with the world’s most sought-after thinkers” based in London, England, according to her

bio on Canada 2020.

“Her professional experience prior to Pi Capital ranges from agricultural research in Africa to assessing new and advanced energy technologies,” her bio says. “In particular, Diana has helped develop frameworks for thinking about getting to ‘net zero’ greenhouse gas emissions, the role negative emissions will play in this effort, and how capital can be channeled to the right companies.”

In 2021, she became

a senior adviser at Eurasia Group

, a risk research and consulting firm.

She has also served as a Trustee of the Friends of the Royal Academy and a World Wildlife Foundation Ambassador, her Oxford hockey bio says.

According to the Oxford Society for International Development

, she has worked with charities such as Save the Children.

She later became a director of strategy and engagement at the Institute for Public Policy Research, the

Ottawa Lookout reported

. However, she left the position in 2025,

according to People Magazine

, adding that her current employment is unknown.

How many children do they have?

The Carneys have four children: Cleo, Tess, Amelia and Sasha, 

according to the Ottawa Lookout

.

 Mark Carney and Diana Carney at the U.S. Embassy’s Fourth of July Celebration held Monday, July 4, 2011, in Rockcliffe Park.

Cleo Carney introduced her father in March, when he was elected as Liberal leader. She is

studying at Harvard University

. Just like her mother, she is interested in climate policy. She’s on the

board of Bluedot Institute

.

Sasha Carney, who uses they/them pronouns,

attended Yale University

, graduating in 2023. Sasha was a 2022 Yale Farm Summer Intern as part of the university’s sustainable food program. According to

publisher TinHouse

, Sasha is an award-winning writer and editorial assistant whose work has been published in Yale Literary Magazine, The Forge, and Barren Magazine and, in 2019,

longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize

.

Amelia Carney reportedly graduated from the University of Edinburgh last year.

. The Tatler

and

Daily Mail

reported that Tess Carney has largely stayed out of the public eye.

Where is Diana Fox Carney from?

Fox Carney was born into

a wealthy pig farming family

and raised in England.

What are some of Diana Fox Carney’s interests?

According to the Ottawa Lookout, Fox Carney enjoys going for runs, skiing, and “making ceramics in her cottage studio.” She told the publication that she was “gearing up to garden” at home. The Carneys also appear to enjoy watching tennis together.

People Magazine reported

they attended the prestigious Wimbledon tournament twice.

Where do the Carneys live?

They have lived in

Ottawa’s Rockcliffe Park neighbourhood

since 2020,

the Ottawa Citizen reported.

Carney’s office has not responded to National Post’s requests about where he and his family will live while he is prime minister.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.


NDP leader Jagmeet Singh speaks during a TV interview in Windsor, Ontario, April 26, 2025.

With the votes still being tabulated on Tuesday, it seems likely that the New Democratic Party, which had entered the election race with 24 seats in Parliament, will emerge with only seven. This would result in the NDP losing official party status. But what does that mean?

What is official party status?

In addition to the governing party and the official opposition, many Westminster-style parliaments (including Canada’s) recognize additional parties.

In 1963, with three of the four previous elections having resulted in minority governments, the government amended the Senate and House of Commons Act to provide an additional annual allowance to party leaders other than the prime minister and leader of the opposition.

Party leaders were defined

as Members of Parliament who led a party with a “recognized membership of 12 or more persons in the House of Commons.” Thus, an official party needs at least that many sitting members in Parliament.

Why is official party status important?

Christopher Cochrane

, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto, tells National Post: “The main thing is it means a significant loss of parliamentary funds for the party. It’s things like support for having a research office for the party, staff support that they get based on party size, even to smaller things like phone plans for staffers (and) support for a party office.”

He adds: “The NDP didn’t have a lot of time to develop a quote-unquote war chest for this election, and now they’re going to have to continue more or less with all the exact same struggles that they’ve been dealing with, and yet with considerably less, actually virtually no support from Parliament for their party operations.”

 NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh smiles before speaking to supporters while his wife, Gurkiran Kaur, looks on at the NDP Headquarters in Burnaby, B.C., April 28, 2025.

The relevant information regarding official party perks is spelled out in a document called

Members’ Allowances and Services Manual

, published by the House of Commons, but it’s not easy to navigate. To begin with, the term “official party” only appears twice in the manual’s 343 pages, when it refers to termination of national caucus research offices, “in the event that the Member’s party loses its official party status.”

“What they mean by official party is spelled out in different language,” says Cochrane. “The term that is used here for the most part is ‘recognized party,’ but that’s what is meant by official party. And a recognized party starts at 12 members.”

Official status also gives members

more opportunities to ask questions

in Question Period, and to participate in debates in the House of Commons.

What are some of the perks for an official (or recognized) party?

In the section of the manual titled “Budget Formula Following a General Election,” it notes that each opposition party with 12 to 25 members will receive $1,116,920 for a party leader office budget, $111,700 for a house leader office budget, $148,910 for a chief whip office budget, and $79,520 for a caucus chair office budget. Those numbers go up if the party has more than 25 members, but 12 is the minimum.

The manual also lists an information technology budget allocation of $73,280, a translation services budget allocation of $177,880, a national caucus meetings budget allocation of $65,470, and a national caucus research office budget of $744,630.

These items alone add up to just over $2.5 million, but there are many smaller items, such as one smartphone and up to two Apple iPads per member, which can cost up to $2,500 each. “Expenses associated with the monthly data plan and roaming charges of iPads are charged to the MOB (Member’s Office Budget),” the manual says.

Is official party status the same as registered party status?

No. Elections Canada lists

16 registered federal parties

, including the usual suspects — the Bloc Québécois, the Green Party of Canada, etc. — as well as some well-known fringe movements like the Marijuana Party and the Parti Rhinocéros Party, and a few you may never have heard of, like the Animal Protection Party of Canada or the Canadian Future Party.

Has a party lost its official status before?

Yes. In fact, it happened to two parties in 1993. The Progressive Conservatives under Prime Minister Kim Campbell went into that election with 154 seats and emerged with just two. Meanwhile, the New Democratic Party fell to nine seats from 44. Gains were seen by the Liberals, the Bloc and the Reform Party. Both the PC party and the NDP regained official status in the next election, in 1997.

How bad will it be for the NDP this time?

Cochrane thinks it will be a rough time for the New Democrats, especially since fundraising laws have changed since 1993, forcing parties to rely more on their Parliamentary perks.

“I think the challenge for the New Democrats is going to be to just continue to keep themselves relevant in the minds of the public at a time when their capacity to advertise and their basic outreach and basic functional operation of a party is significantly undermined both by lack of fundraising capacity and now by lack of Parliamentary support because of the loss of official party status,” he says.

Is there a silver lining?

If the Liberals wind up just a few seats short of a majority, even a weakened NDP could help get their numbers to 51 per cent on votes. And that would make them an important ally to the ruling party.

 Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader Mark Carney dances at a victory party in Ottawa after the Liberals won the federal election, on April 29, 2025.

“There is an opportunity for the NDP in a minority Parliament to exert leverage beyond its electoral weight,” says Cochrane. “The fact that the NDP could play a pivotal role in the stability of Parliament despite getting so little of the support is incredible.”


Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney arrives at the Office of the Prime Minister and Privy Council, the morning after the Liberal Party won the Canadian federal election, in Ottawa on Tuesday, April 29, 2025.

OTTAWA — With a handful of ridings still too close to call, the Liberals still had a faint hope on Tuesday to form a majority government.

Elections Canada resumed counting in the morning, including advance polls and special ballots for Canadians who are either travelling, living abroad, incarcerated or cast their votes on college or university campuses.

Liberals picked up a seat in the Montreal-area riding of Terrebonne in Quebec. Liberal challenger Tatiana Auguste won by 35 votes ahead of Bloc Québécois incumbent Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, but the close result will likely lead to an automatic judicial recount.

More election results were expected to be unveiled later in the day.

That means that Liberals are on course to win a projected 169 seats — three seats short of a majority — but that could change again, depending on if they manage to pick up enough seats to get to the magic number of 172 seats they need to serve a full four-year term.

In Nunavut, NDP incumbent Lori Idlout was elected with 77 votes ahead of Liberal candidate Kilikvak Kabloona. Her NDP colleague Don Davies also managed to hang onto his seat in Vancouver Kingsway by 310 votes against Liberal challenger Amy K. Gill.

In New Brunswick’s Miramichi—Grand Lake riding, Conservative candidate Mike Dawson managed to hold on to the seat previously held by fellow Tory Jake Stewart. Dawson faced a fierce battle from Liberal candidate Lisa Harris, who was behind with 394 votes.

Liberals also officially lost seats to the Tories by a few hundred seats in a handful of Ontario ridings.

In Windsor—Tecumsek—Lakeshore, Liberal incumbent Irek Kusmierczyk lost to Conservative challenger Kathy Borrelli by 233 votes. Conservative candidate Parm Gill also picked up the riding of Milton East—Halton Hills South with 298 votes.

Conservative candidate Matt Strauss won against Liberal incumbent Valerie Bradford in Kitchener South—Hespeler by more than 1,000 votes. In Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, Liberal incumbent Chad Collins lost to his Conservative challenger Ned Kuruc by nearly 1,500 votes.

In the Quebec riding of Shefford, Bloc incumbent Andréanne Larouche held on to her seat with 571 votes ahead of Liberal challenger Felix Dionne.

In British Columbia, the riding of Cloverdale—Langley City was one to watch for the tight race between the Conservatives and the Liberals. In the end, Conservative candidate Tamara Jenson won against Liberal challenger

Kyle Latchford by 769 votes. 

In Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, Conservative incumbent Marc Dalton was holding on to his seat with less than 1,500 votes but there were still eight polls left to count.

Liberals were also leading with tight margins in the Newfoundland and Labrador riding of Terra Nova—The Peninsulas with 46 votes.

In the B.C. riding of Kelowna, Liberal candidate Stephen Fuhr will be making a comeback in Parliament. He won against Conservative incumbent Tracy Gray with a slim margin of 235 votes.

In the Quebec riding of Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, Liberal candidate Natilien Joseph won against Bloc incumbent Denis Trudel by 749 votes.

National Post

calevesque@postmedia.com

Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our newsletters here.


Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet speaks to supporters at Bloc headquarters on Tuesday April 29, 2025.

MONTREAL — The last thing Quebecers and Canadians want is instability in the federal Parliament, according to Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet, calling on his federal counterparts to drop partisanship and work hand in hand to fight U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats.

“I do not see any other scenario than collaboration for at least a year,” said Blanchet during a somber press conference the morning after an “atypical election.”

The country was still awaiting official results from Elections Canada when Blanchet spoke to the press in Montreal. The Liberal party could still win a majority of seats or collaborate with the left-leaning New Democratic Party to govern without fear of being overthrown.

The separatist leader said he had already contacted other federal leaders to discuss the next steps in a possible minority parliament.

“In these results, there is uncertainty, and the instability prevails,” Blanchet said.

“Quebec wants stability. Federalist parties and our party, which is an independentist party, should be working together in this crisis. We should not threaten to overthrow the government anytime soon,” he added.

Canada is in the midst of a trade war with its closest ally, the United States: Trump has imposed tariffs on Canadian imports and has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada.

Blanchet’s comments come after he said last week that he felt like he was sitting in a “foreign parliament” and that Quebec was part of an “artificial country with very little meaning, called Canada.” His comments were

widely criticized outside of Quebec

.

However, the leader of Quebec’s main independence vehicle, the provincial Parti Québécois, blamed Blanchet for running a poor campaign.

“The strategy adopted by the Bloc, which validates Mark Carney as a collaborator, as someone who is preparing to collaborate with Quebec, set limits on what the Parti Québécois could do in the circumstances, because that is not what we think,” said Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.

He hopes that the Bloc Québécois “will return a little more to its independence roots.”

The PQ has been leading in the polls for over a year and is poised to form the next provincial government in 2026. The party promises to hold a referendum on Quebec independence during its first mandate.

Blanchet said he would speak with St-Pierre Plamondon in the coming days.

The Bloc Québécois suffered significant losses to the Liberals. At the time of the dissolution, the Bloc held 33 seats and is on track to win a maximum of 23 after Monday’s election.

Furthermore, the Liberals were about to win a total of 43 Quebec seats, a majority of the province’s 78 ridings, which seems to be at least partly due to threats from the White House.

National Post

atrepanier@postmedia.com

Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our newsletters here.


As of Tuesday morning, Elections Canada reports that more than 67 per cent of Canadians voted in this year's election.

Voter participation in the largely Trump-driven federal election was among the largest since the free-trade election of 1988, when Canada’s ties with the U.S. last took centre stage in a campaign.

As of 1:29 p.m. ET Tuesday, Elections Canada reported that 19,226,696 registered electors — 67.4 per cent — had cast a ballot, whether in-person on Monday or during the four-day advance polling period on Easter weekend when

a record-breaking 7.3 million-plus voted.

However, the final figure doesn’t yet include those who registered on election day or the results of roughly 500 polls left to tally after Elections Canada

paused counting of special ballots

early Tuesday morning.

Special ballots are cast by mail or in person at any election office if the person cannot or does not want to vote in advance or on election day.

Tabulating resumed at 9:30 a.m

., and the

agency’s results page

is being regularly updated.

This year’s sum has already surpassed the 62.6 per cent in 2021.

After spoiled ballots are removed, the Liberals have collected roughly 8.3 million votes to the Conservatives’ 7.9 million thus far.

Per Elections Canada

, the last time more than 70 per cent of eligible voters took part in an election was in 1988, when 75.3 per cent exercised their right as incumbent prime minister Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservatives collected a second straight majority government.

The largest ever turnout was 79.4 per cent in 1958, the year Tory John Diefenbaker routed the Liberals and Lester B. Pearson. The lowest, 58.8 per cent, was in 2008 as Stephen Harper’s Conservatives collected a slightly stronger minority.

Provincially, Prince Edward Island had the most eligible voters at 75.9 per cent as of Tuesday morning, and Newfoundland and Labrador had the smallest turnout at 65.5 per cent. Average turnout in the rest of Canada was roughly 68 per cent.

In Northern Canada, Yukon (71.9 per cent) followed P.E.I., the Northwest Territories landed at 53 per cent and only 35.3 per cent voted in Nunavut.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our newsletters here.


David Myles, the Liberal candidate for Fredericton-Oromocto, warms up the crowd in the New Brunswick capital before Liberal Leader Mark Carney took the stage at a rally earlier this month.

OTTAWA — Canada just elected what could be the highest charting member of Parliament in history.

The song Inner Ninja, by Classified features newly-elected New Brunswick MP David Myles. The song hit number five on

Billboard Canadian Hot 100

, after its release in 2013 and has

racked up 5.4 million views on YouTube

.

Myles won the Fredericton—Oromocto riding as a Liberal candidate in Monday’s federal election, becoming part of a new minority Liberal government. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is a handful of seats short of a majority government and will have to rely on the support of an opposition party to pass legislation in the House of Commons.

 Liberal David Myles celebrates his victory in the federal riding of Fredericton-Oromocto on Monday. The Juno-winning singer-songwriter defeated Conservative candidate Brian Macdonald, the former Fredericton area MLA. Photo: John Chilibeck/Brunswick News

Myles, a

Juno Award winner,

announced he would be running as a Liberal candidate in March 2025, two months after Fredericton’s previous Liberal MP Jenica Atwinm said she wouldn’t run again.

The singer-songwriter also performed at a Liberal rally in Fredericton, N.B., in April, 2025.

“Every single night when I’d get on stage, I’d start the show by saying ‘Hi I’m David Myles, I’m from Fredericton New Brunswick,’ and that made me so happy … and I’m thinking maybe someday … I’m gonna be able to stand in Parliament and say ‘Hi I’m David Myles from Fredericton-Oromocto,’” he said before introducing Mark Carney to the podium.

Myles isn’t the first musician turned politician in the House of Commons. Charlie Angus and Andrew Cash were both NDP MPs. Angus and Cash performed in a punk rock band together in the 1980s, called L’Étranger.

Angus was the MP for Timmins-James Bay, Ont. from 2004 to 2025. He announced his retirement in April 2024. Meanwhile, Cash represented the Davenport riding in Toronto, from 2011 to 2014.

Cash won a Juno award

in 1989 for Most Promising Male Vocalist of the Year.

National Post

Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.