The former central banker successfully convinced voters that he was the right candidate to confront President Trump’s trade war and threats to annex the country.

W hatever his flaws as a politician turn out to be, Mark Carney does at least possess self-awareness. “You’re supposed to campaign in poetry and govern in prose,” he said in his final campaign speech on April 27th, on the eve of the election. “As the assembled media will tell you, I campaigned in prose. So I’m going to govern in econometrics.”

The Liberal leader has steered his party to an unprecedented turnaround—facing down Trump and Pierre Poilievre, writes Stephen Maher.