Merry Christmas, Mark Carney

Figuring out the Canadian political winners of 2025 is pretty easy.

Mark Carney, Ontario’s Doug Ford, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Tony Wakeham: they all won elections in 2025.

But Carney, Ford and Wakeham aren’t winners simply because of that. They’re winners because they all made a little history, as Nick Cave sang.

For his part, Ford increased his share of the popular vote with a third majority win, and he kept his political opponents marginalized. Wakeham’s achievement was also winning a majority government, and ending a decade of Liberal rule – stunning many in the province.

And Mark Carney? In 2025, Carney is the biggest winner of all. Because his Liberal Party wasn’t supposed to win anything.

Just one year ago this week, Ipsos was reporting that Pierre Poilievre’s Tories had a 25-point lead over Trudeau’s beleaguered Grits. The CBC poll tracker, an aggregator of all polls, showed the same thing. Other polls actually showed the Conservative lead to be closer to 30 percentage points – a massive Parliamentary majority.

Then came January, and seismic political shifts. Justin Trudeau left, Donald Trump returned, tariffs hit, and Mark Carney made his debut.

2025 has been a political roller coaster, with plenty of twists and turns. But Carney’s April victory was truly extraordinary. Never in recent Canadian political history had a party overcome a nearly-30-point-deficit to win a near-majority – within just a matter of weeks.

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