Under threat from Trump, Canada set to hold snap elections

Canada's new prime minister Mark Carney is expected to announce snap elections Sunday, seeking a stronger mandate as his country fights off a trade war and annexation threats from Donald Trump's United States.

The former central banker was chosen by the centrist Liberal Party to replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister, but he has never faced the broader Canadian electorate.

That will change on April 28, if, as expected, Carney announces he is bringing parliamentary elections forward several months from October.

Government sources told AFP that he would announce the decision at 12:30 local time (1630 GMT) in a speech to Canada's 41-million-strong nation.

In power for a decade, the Liberal government had slid into deep unpopularity, but Carney will be hoping to ride a wave of Canadian patriotism to a new majority -- thanks to Trump's threats.

Trump has riled his northern neighbor by repeatedly dismissing its sovereignty and borders as artificial, and urging it to join the United States as the 51st state.

The ominous remarks have been accompanied by Trump's trade war, imposing tariffs on imports from Canada that could wreck its economy.

"In this time of crisis the government needs a strong and clear mandate," Carney told supporters on Thursday in a speech in the western city of Edmonton.

- Poll favorites -

Domestic issues such as the cost of living and immigration usually dominate Canadian elections, but this year one key topic tops the list: who can best handle Trump.

The president's open hostility toward his northern neighbor -- a NATO ally and historically one of his country's closest partners -- has upended the Canadian political landscape.

Trudeau, who had been in power since 2015, was deeply unpopular when he announced he was stepping down, with Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives seen as election favorites just weeks ago.

But the polls have narrowed spectacularly in Carney's favor since he took over the Liberals, and now analysts are calling this Trump-overshadowed race too close to call.

"Many consider this to be an existential election, unprecedented," Felix Mathieu, a political scientist at the University of Winnipeg told AFP.

"It is impossible at this stage to make predictions, but this will be a closely watched election with a voter turnout that should be on the rise."

Poilievre, 45, is a career politician, first elected when he was only 25. A veteran tough-talking campaigner, he has sometimes been tagged as a libertarian and a populist.

Carney, 60, has spent his career outside of electoral politics. He spent over a decade at Goldman Sachs and went on to lead Canada's central bank, then the Bank of England.

Smaller opposition parties could suffer if Canadians seek to give a large mandate to one of the big two, to strengthen his hand against Trump.

And as for the US leader, he professes not to care, while pushing ahead with plans to further strengthen tariffs against Canada and other major trading partners on April 2.

"I don't care who wins up there," Trump said this week.

"But just a little while ago, before I got involved and totally changed the election, which I don't care about [...] the Conservative was leading by 35 points."