A large crowd of enthusiastic supporters welcomed federal Liberal leader Mark Carney to Peterborough on Saturday afternoon (April 19), despite long line-ups and then an hour-long delay before the prime minister made his appearance.
The rally took place at the Peterborough Sport & Wellness Centre on Brealey Drive, with an estimated 1,100 people packed into a gymnasium according to local Liberal organizers.
Earlier in the day during a campaign stop in Whitby, Carney had announced the release of his party’s election platform, which promises almost $130 billion in spending over the next four years, including $22 billion tax cut, $22 billion for housing, $18 billion in new defence spending, and $3.5 billion for health care initiatives.
Peterborough Liberal candidate Emma Harrison spoke at the podium to introduce Carney, noting the attendance of four other Liberal candidates from the Kawarthas region who were at the event: Tracey Sweeney Schenk for Hastings-Lennox and Addington-Tyendinaga, John Goheen for Northumberland-Clarke, Nell Thomas for Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes, and Chris Malette for Bay of Quinte,
“Across Canada, the Liberal campaign is built on hope and unity, and is kept alive by the values that we, as Canadians, hold close to our hearts,” Harrison told the crowd. “Canadians from coast to coast have come together as we always have to unite and protect the country that we love. Now, I ask you to bring that same passion to this moment. It is an absolute honour to introduce to you, Prime Minister Mark Carney.”
Carney spoke for just under half an hour, sometimes in French, often interrupted by cheers and applause from the crowd.
The Liberal leader outlined his accomplishments in the short time he has been prime minister, sometimes took jabs at Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, described the Liberal election platform, and often returned to the issue that has made the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England the frontrunner in the race: the threat to Canada’s economy and sovereignty threat posed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Another common theme in Carney’s remarks was hockey — something he referred to when introducing himself to the Peterborough crowd.
“I always think, when I think of Peterborough: home of champions,” he said. “When I think of Peterborough, I think of Bob Gainey … I think of Roger Neilson. I think of Andria Hunter, women’s hockey pioneer, and we have a chance here in Peterborough to add another Peterborough champion, Emma. Send Emma to Ottawa.”
Explaining why he chose to enter politics, Carney said he saw the need for “big changes to get economy back on track.”
“I’m not a career politician, but what I am is a pragmatist. So when I see something that’s not working, I change it.”
He talked about what he did as soon as he became prime minister, including cutting taxes on new homes, getting rid of the planned capital gains tax hike and the consumer carbon tax because it has “become too divisive” (both initiated by the former Trudeau government), expanding the Liberal dental care plan to cover an additional five million people, and striking a new deal with the European Union.
Carney described meeting with the premiers of the provinces and territories and reaching an agreement on eliminating barriers to trade and the movement of workers between provinces.
“I thought to myself, ‘When’s the last time all the provinces agreed on anything?’ Except that they hate the federal government, which is okay. As long as they agree on stuff that works for Canadians, I’m fine — they can still hate me.”
After saying “We need one Canadian economy, not 13,” Carney said “We will legislate away all federal barriers by Canada Day.”
Carney spoke about the Liberal government’s plan to invest in energy, ports, and the military, before taking his first jab at his Conservative rival.
“In nine days in government, before we called this election, we did more than Pierre Poilievre has imagined in all his decades in politics,” Carney said. “I’m not sure he has an imagination. He’s just mimicking Donald.”
Carney listed some of the elements of the just-released Liberal platform, including a middle-class tax cut, modernizing the Canadian armed forces, a strategy for a made-in-Canada auto sector, investing in ports and infrastructure connecting ports, and increasing the pace of home construction.
“You know how we’re going to do it?” Carney said of housing. “We are going to cut a bunch of regulations, we’re going to cut a bunch of costs — no question. But honestly, that is not going to be enough. That is not going to build enough houses on its own. We’re going to get the government to come back in to build deeply affordable homes for those who most need it.”
Promising to create “an entirely new housing industry in this country” based on Canadian goods and labour, he said his government would add tens of thousands of new jobs in the skilled trades, before asking for a “strong mandate” to address threats from the U.S.
“We are facing the most significant crisis of our lifetimes,” Carney said. “We’re facing that because of President Trump’s unjustified, unwarranted, unwise tariffs, and his threats to our sovereignty,” with boos resounding from the crowd.
“When I spoke to him, I told him I categorically reject any attempt to weaken Canada,” Carney claimed of his first official telephone call with the U.S. President back in March.
When he spotted a supporter in the crowd carrying what was presumably a hockey stick, he quipped “I might have to borrow that stick … I might bring the stick down to (Trump’s Florida residence) Mar-a-Lago.”
“We reject any attempt to wear us down, because what they’re trying to do is break us, so America can own us. That will never happen.”
“Canadians are over now the shock of this betrayal, but it was a shock,” Carney said. “We’re over the shock of the betrayal, but we can never forget the lessons that we’ve been taught. The first one is that we have to look out for ourselves, and we have to look out for each other.”
Saying Canadians need to be united “to weather the storm,” Carney noted that all revenue from Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. will be used to protect Canadian workers, before returning to a hockey theme.
“We didn’t ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves,” he said. “And in a trade war, just like in hockey, we will win.”
“Like many of you I know, hockey has played a big part in my life. I grew up with the values I learned at the kitchen table, in the classroom, and on the ice. My parents were teachers, and they stressed the importance of working hard, supporting our community, and caring for other people. And my hockey coaches taught me to play hard, to be ambitious, but also — because it’s Canada — to be humble.”
“Those are Peterborough values, those are Canadian values,” Carney said. “And now I’m drawing on them to stand up to Trump and build the strongest economy in the G7, the economy that works for everyone, in a drastically different way.”
Carney then turned his attention back to Poilievre.
“There’s a type of lifelong politician who worships at the altar of the free market, despite having never actually worked in the private sector,” he said. “And the reflex is always to cut, to destroy, and I’m afraid to divide.”
“But this is no time for divisive, angry politics in Canada. Negativity will not win a trade war, negativity won’t pay the mortgage or the rent, negativity won’t bring down the price of groceries, negativity won’t make Canada strong. Someone who believes Canada is broken won’t put it first.”
Returning to the threat from the U.S., Carney said “It is our strength that the Americans want.”
“They want our resources, they want our water, they want our land, they want our country. Never.”
Contrasting the difference between the two countries, Carney said healthcare in the U.S. is “big business,” while in Canada “it is a right.”
He then took a few more jabs at Poilievre.
“It’s not a big insight, but we’re not going to be able to change Donald Trump. And a person who worships President Trump, like Pierre Poilievre, will kneel down before him.”
He also criticized Poilievre for still not getting his security clearance, despite the security threats facing Canada.
“We can control our destiny with a plan that meets the moment,” Carney said, before making light of the Conservative leader’s recent announcement about rescinding the ban on single-use plastics, including plastic straws.
“While he was off doing that important work, meeting the moment in a different way, we launched our platform today. And it’s a platform solely focused on how, in the worst crisis of our lifetime, we can build the strongest economy this country has ever seen. And it’s a positive plan.”
Carney claimed that the Liberal’s platform will create $20,000 of new growth for every Canadian in the next five years.
Carney then related an anecdote about a teacher who shared what her eight and nine-year-old students had written in an assignment about their dreams for Canada.
“This is what struck me: many of the kids wrote about tariffs and threats to our sovereignty,” he said, shaking his head. “At that age, I hadn’t met those words, I didn’t know those words.”
“I’m going to quote one example, where one student said, ‘I dream of a safe, a kind, and a clean Canada.’ And then that student went on and said ‘A Canada that is not the U.S.'”
“Our children should be able to dream of a positive future, not worry about an economic crisis. We can give them that future now. We can give them that future they deserve. And we will do it, not because it’s easy, but because it is right. That’s why I’m standing before you today.”
When someone in the crowd shouted “Thank you!”, Carney responded with his final comments.
“I owe Canada something, because Canada has given me everything. My family, my education, and my values. And in return, I’m ready to give everything to Canada.”
Election day is Monday, April 28, with advance polling running until Easter Monday.
According to Elections Canada, preliminary estimates show nearly two million electors voted on Good Friday, the first day of advance polls — a record turnout, up 36 per cent from the first day of advance polling in the 2021 election.
