Canada began to vote on Monday to choose the Prime Minister responsible for dealing with an unprecedented crisis and negotiating with Donald Trump who reiterated his desire to annex Canada, when voters go to the polls.
This is the name that appears on any Canadian ballot but the one in all heads: US President Donald Trump haunted the Canadian anticipated legislative campaign.
Monday morning, he once again talked about erasing the “artificial line” which separates the two neighbors believing that this could only bring “positive”.
The question that has been agitating Canadian voters for weeks therefore is: who is most likely to face it? Who will best defend Canadian interests at this pivotal moment for the country?
Two candidates are ahead of the others in the voting intentions, with one step ahead for the first: the liberal candidate and current Prime Minister Mark Carney and the leader of the Conservatives Pierre Hairyvre.
The campaign took place in a tense climate, and was turned upside down in the last hours by an attack on the ram car in Vancouver, by a man suffering from mental health problems, according to the police, who killed eleven people.
In this immense country, which spans six time zones, the first polling stations opened at 8:30 am local (11:00 GMT) in the Atlantic provinces. In total, nearly 29 million voters are called upon to vote, but more than seven of them have already made their choice in anticipation, record participation.
The results should be known a few hours after the closure of the vote, at 7:00 p.m. Pacific side (2:00 GMT on Tuesday).
“It’s a unique election”, loose Hamza Fahri, who is an engineer in Montreal. “I really changed my mind recently. Before, I wanted the liberals to leave. ”
“But ultimately I will vote Carney because he is a strong man, serious and to face Trump, that’s it, which the country needs,” says the 28 -year -old man.
But in the camp opposite, the supporters of Pierre Hairy dream of change after ten years of government of the Liberal Justin Trudeau.
-“I do not agree with the way the liberals governed our country. It has to change, ”says Kelsey Leschasin who lives in the rural province of Saskatchewan.
Entering the political arena only a month ago, Mark Carney, former banker and ex-Governor of the Bank of Canada and England, promises to face the “reinventing” the Canadian economy.
Since he replaced Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister, he has been trying to convince voters that his career has made him the ideal candidate to manage this historic crisis that the country lives with with customs duties that already affect key sectors such as automotive and steel.
Donald Trump’s United States “want to break us in order to have us,” he repeated several times during the campaign.
“I have already managed savings and crises. The time is for experience, not for experimentation, ”launched this 60 -year -old English speaker, born in the west of this bilingual country and whose French is limited.
Opposite, the conservative leader, a 45 -year -old career politician, wants the country, 9th world economic power, turns back to the Liberals. He promises to reduce taxes, public spending and tackling the “Woke ideology”.
Measures that placed him largely at the top of the polls, a few months ago, before Donald Trump came to jostle everything.
“We cannot bear an additional four years like that,” he said in the last days of the campaign speaking of a trajectory leading to more “despair, more inflation”.
According to the latest polls, the Liberals are credited with 42.8% of the votes and the conservatives of 38.8%. In terms of seats projections, liberals could be able to obtain around 200 deputies for a majority placed at 172.
The other parties – the new Democratic Party (left), the Quebec Bloc (independentist) and the Greens – could undergo heavy defeats, victims in part of the useful vote.
Lnt with AFP
