Robert Fife: Globe and Mail Ottawa Bureau Chief on the Liberal Party winning the Canada Election

A question mark over how Canada's Prime Minister, Mark Carney, will perform.  

The Liberal Party won the country's election yesterday, beating the Conservative party, and locking down a fourth term. 

The win means Carney will keep hold of the top job he took over from Justin Trudeau six weeks ago.  

Globe and Mail Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife told Mike Hosking he has no experience in retail policy, but headed the banks of Canada and England. 

He says given these credentials, he should do okay, but there's been no real opportunity to see him perform as Prime Minister. 

There’s also doubts Carney will be able to secure a majority government, as he’s currently sitting at 169 seats of the 172 needed. 

Fife doesn't think he'll get up to this number, but may reach 170. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the Liberals win in Canada, they're still short, as
far as I can work out, at the moment of
a confirmed majority, they may not in fact get there.
But Mark Conney was bullish last night.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based
on steadily increasing integration, is over. The system of open
global trade anchored by the United States, a system that
Canada has relied on since the Second World War, a
system that, well, not perfect, has helped deliver prosperity for

(00:32):
a country for decades is over. These are tragedies, but
it's also our new reality. We are over. We are
over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should
never forget the lessons cool. We have to look out

(00:54):
for ourselves.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Globe and males onto a bureau chief. Robin five is back. Well,
it's Robert very good morning to you.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Good morning to you.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Is he going to be a good prime minister?

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Well, that's a very hard question for me to answer.
One really doesn't know, because we've seen him as Prime
minister for only a few months and only nine days
before he called an election campaign. He certainly has the qualifications.
He headed the Bank of Canada during the two thousand
and eight economic meltdown, and based on his handling of

(01:25):
that crisis, Great Britain approached him to run the Bank
of England and he managed to get Great Britain through
the Brexit crisis. And since then he's been a chairman
of a major investment bank non investment of investment vehicle

(01:46):
worth about a trillion dollars US. But we don't really
know how he's going to perform as prime minister. He
has no experience, he's never held elective office, he has
no experience in retail politics. One would assume that given
his credentials, he should do okay, But I wouldn't put
the I wouldn't put any money down on any of

(02:06):
this because we haven't had a real opportunity to see
him perform as prime minister.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
He needs one seventy two seats. He's got one sixty eight.
Do they get there or not.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
He's got one sixty nine right now that's just come in.
I don't know whether he's going to be able. I
don't think he's going to get the one seventy two.
He may get up to one seventy, maybe one seventy one,
but he's not going to be able to do that.
If he gets to one seventy one, what they can
do is to elect a Conservatives as a House of
common Speaker and then he'd have his majority. But I

(02:38):
don't think he's going to reach that.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Paully had lost his seat. I assume he's gone. Way
did the Conservatives go here? What a disaster?

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Well, it actually hasn't been a disaster as much as
you might think. Certainly they expected to roll to victory
with a massive majority government for the last two years well,
justin Trudeau was in power, and then when Trudeau was
pushed out by his political by his own party, and
then Donald Trump came into the White House and launched

(03:10):
a trade war against US and talked about an annexation.
Mister Carney just went way up in the polls and
looked like he was going to win a majority government.
But at the end of the day, mister Paully of
his Conservatives have done pretty well. They have about one
hundred and forty four seats. He did lose his seat,
but he's going to I think he's probably going to

(03:30):
be able to survive because, first of all, he's won
more seats than the Conservatives had won in twenty nineteen
and twenty twenty one, and they have just over forty
percent of the popular vote. The last time the Conservatives
said that was in nineteen eighty eight with Brian Rooney
when he won a majority government. So I think he's

(03:50):
probably going to be able to hang on. So it
hasn't been a disaster for the Conservatives, but obviously they
wanted to win exactly.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Robert appreciate your inside. His was Robert five Globe and
Mayolotto are bureau chief. The other one, by the way,
the new Democrats lay a bad night as well. The
guy sing who's the leader of that party. He got
rolled as well. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
listen live to News Talks at B from six am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.