New Sudbury East-Manitoulin-Nickel Belt riding begins campaign with Liberal, Conservative, NDP candidates
OTTAWA—Fresh off his landslide win in the Liberal leadership contest, newly-minted Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney wasted no time in launching a federal general election—visiting Governor General Mary Simon on Sunday to ask her to dissolve Parliament and setting the election date for April 28.
“We are facing the most significant crisis of our lifetime because of President Trump’s unjustified trade actions and his threats to our sovereignty,” said Prime Minister Carney as he made the announcement. “He wants to break us, so America can own us. We will not let this happen. We’re over the shock of the betrayal, but we can never forget the lessons. We have to look out for ourselves. We have to look out for each other.”
“I will insist the president recognizes the independence and sovereignty of Canada,” said Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre as he launched his bid for the reins of power. “I will insist he stops tariffing our nation.”
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Despite falling to their lowest polling numbers in decades, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh was defiant. “I’m very familiar and comfortable being an underdog,” he said as he launched the NDP campaign. “I think a lot of Canadians can relate to that. I know that folks like Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney would want nothing better than for New Democrats to disappear, but news to them, we’re not going anywhere.”
The call comes on the heels of conflicting demands from the opposition parties, as both the Official Opposition Conservative Party of Canada, the third party Bloc Quebecois and the fourth party NDP have been demanding that Parliament be recalled in order to pass legislation to deal with the Trump tariff threats, yet at the same time also indicating they would pull the plug on the government at the first opportunity.
Prime Minister Carney, who does not yet have a seat in Parliament, decided to pull the plug himself. The prime minister will be running in Ottawa Centre and seeking a mandate to deal with the US president. It doesn’t hurt that the Liberals, after languishing far back in opinion polls for nearly two years behind the Conservatives, have surged back to a statistical tie or even taken the lead (as of writing).
In the lead up to his election call, Prime Minister Carney called an end to the consumer carbon tax and the controversial proposed capital gains tax changes of his predecessor—thereby effectively pulling two of the sharpest teeth in the Conservative’s attack platform going into the writ and setting a new course for his tenure.
The election will take place on April 28, making this one of the shortest federal electoral contests in history, but possibly one of the most consequential in Canada’s existence—given the literally existential threats posed by the American president. The election cycle was shortened from 45 days to 37 days in 1996.
Before the dissolution of Parliament, the Liberal Party of Canada held 152 seats in the House of Commons, the Conservatives had 120 seats, the Bloc Québécois 33 seats, the NDP 24 seats and the Green Party two.
Manitoulin will be taking part in its first election as part of the new riding of Sudbury East-Manitoulin-Nickel Belt after redistribution eliminated the Northern Ontario riding of Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing (AMK). The AMK riding was held by NDP MP Carol Hughes, who announced her retirement several months ago.
The “incumbent” candidate is Liberal Marc Serré, whose Nickel Belt riding now encompasses Manitoulin. First elected as the MP for Nickel Belt in 2015, Mr. Serré previously served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Official Languages, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources and as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Rural Economic Development. He is also an award-winning telecommunications technologies researcher and developer and received the Canadian CANARIE IWAY Award in recognition of his innovative and outstanding achievements in Internet adaptive technology. He is the recipient of the Ontario Community Action Award for his work in the non-profit and disability sectors.
The NDP candidate is Andréane Chénier, a national representative for CUPE who last sought public office in the 2021 election when she secured a third-place finish with 26.6 percent of the vote, just a few-hundred votes shy of then second-place Conservative candidate Charles Humphrey.
This time around, the Conservative candidate is Jim Bélanger. This marks his first time entering the lists. He operates a petroleum wholesale and delivery business and ran for the federal Liberal nomination in 2025 against Mr. Serré.
There are no other confirmed candidates as of publication—as the People’s Party candidate recently withdrew and the Green Party has yet to name who will carry their banner in this election.
The Expositor is hosting an all-candidate’s night at 6:30 pm at Manitoulin Secondary School on Wednesday, April 16. As is tradition, light refreshments will be served. We have donuts!
