Liberal Leader Mark Carney kicked off his B.C. election campaign tour on Sunday with a stop at the Victoria Edelweiss Club in James Bay, where hundreds lined up to catch a glimpse of the man seeking to remain as prime minister when Canadians go to the polls for the April 28 federal election.
Surrounded by Liberal candidates from across Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Island, Carney touted the party’s plan to strengthen the economy in the face of U.S. tariffs.
Carney called the U.S. move to put additional tariffs on Canada’s softwood lumber exports over the weekend “shameful,” noting that 50,000 people are employed in the B.C.’s forestry sector.
“Our response is to fight and protect and to build,” he said. “We are fighting the Americans everywhere they understand.
“We have retaliatory tariffs on them — we just hit them again in the auto sector.
“We’re fighting them on Fox News — which is what they understand. We’re sending Doug Ford onto Fox News to show that we’re not messing around.”
Early in his speech, Carney mentioned that he had spoken to U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer earlier in the day about the fallout from the United States’ global tariff campaign.
“The world that I lived through my whole life, an open global trading system sponsored by the U.S., that world is over.”
Carney said he would protect workers in the face of U.S. tariffs by building new trade relationships overseas and breaking down interprovincial trade barriers.
Carney was introduced on stage by Victoria Liberal candidate Will Greaves and was given a welcome in Nuu-chah-nulth by Nanaimo-Ladysmith candidate Michelle Corfield.
During his speech, Carney made a flub on stage by referring to Corfield by the name of another Island Liberal candidate but recovered quickly when he was made aware of the error.
“There’s always one mistake,” quipped Carney, who is a political newcomer who has never held elected office.
Following his 10-minute speech, Carney spent time greeting supporters who were waiting outside before he was whisked away by his security detail.
Susan Close and Claire Simon were all smiles after Carney complimented their matching red berets near the end of his 30-minute campaign stop.
The two self-described former Green Party voters are volunteers on the campaign of David Beckham, the Liberal candidate in the riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands currently held by Green co-leader Elizabeth May.
They were among about 200 people who stayed outside the club after it had reached capacity, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Liberal leader.
Only a portion of those who showed up on Sunday were able to get into the 300-person-capacity venue.
The event lineup stretched through the Edelweiss parking lot and spilled over onto the sidewalks of Niagara and Montreal streets. Many began leaving before the event started when they realized that they would not get in.
A small pro-Palestinian protest was stationed on Niagara throughout the event.
One person who was part of the protest group was escorted away by police when he began shouting slogans inside the venue before Carney arrived. He was later released by police.
Also at the event was former federal environment minister Catherine McKenna, who has been campaigning for Greaves in Cook Street Village and with Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke candidate Stephanie McLean in Royal Oak over the weekend.
McKenna told reporters that Carney is the right person to deal with climate change, though she admitted it was “really hard” that he pledged to scrap the carbon levy she spent years putting into place.
The Edelweiss Club venue was secured by the Liberal campaign on short notice.
Operators of the German cultural centre scrambled to find staff for the campaign event the day before.
Campaign spokesperson Audrey Champoux said Carney’s campaign is being planned out “day-by-day,” as Carney has had to frequently return to Ottawa for prime ministerial duties, such as announcing Canada’s response to U.S. tariffs.
Carney was expected to make an announcement in Victoria Monday morning and take questions from media.
He was set to meet with Premier David Eby in his capacity as prime minister later in the day before going to the Lower Mainland for a rally in Richmond Monday night. No further stops have been announced.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the campaign trail Sunday, the Conservatives focused their message on addictions treatment while the NDP promised to protect tenants through a program of national rent control.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre announced at a press conference in New Westminster a plan to fund recovery treatment for 50,000 people. In a video posted to social media, Poilievre said a Conservative government would provide “results-based funding” to treatment centres based on the number of people they help to get sober.
He said higher levels of funding would be provided for the “most difficult” cases, such as people dealing with long-term homelessness or multiple overdoses.
Poilievre said funds would be paid out gradually and that third-party validators would confirm the results.
The Conservatives say they would set aside $250 million a year for four years to tackle drug addiction and that the Conservatives would fund the programs by making cuts to the federal government’s existing safer supply programs and suing opioid manufacturers.
“We owe it to our fellow citizens who are still struggling with addiction to offer them a real chance to avoid adding to that terrible number of losses we’ve had already,” Poilievre said.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who was in Halifax, said his party would tie federal housing funds for provinces and municipalities to tenant protection policies like rent control.
The party says it also wants to ban fixed-term leases, “renovictions” and other practices it says are aimed at pushing people out of their homes and driving up rents.
The NDP said it would also prohibit the use of artificial intelligence to co-ordinate rent increases.
— with files from the Canadian Press
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