Mark Carney's globetrotting is good electoral math
Visits to China and India shore up vulnerable Liberal incumbents in suburban battleground districts
This article was featured today in The Hub.
Prime Minister Mark Carney travelled abroad again last week as part of his broader agenda to diversify Canadian trade flows and attract foreign investment. Friday’s trip to Norway and the U.K. followed recent trips to Australia, Japan, India, and China.
Carney’s extensive travel schedule has drawn attention from his critics and defenders alike. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre accused him “pranc[ing] around abroad while Canadians pay the price at home.” Defenders have blamed recent political missteps— like Canada’s shifting stance on the Iran War— on his extensive itineraries. “The spin I’ve got from the Carney people is, ‘He was on a plane, he was going to Australia and the Australians had already put out a very strong statement,’” reported The Globe and Mail’s Robert Fife.
In his first year as prime minister, Carney has spent 68 days on foreign travel—about 20% of his first year in office. Jean Chrétien, who made long “Team Canada” trade visits a cornerstone of his foreign policy, spent about 8% of his premiership abroad; Stephen Harper, for whom “three days is a long trip,” spent less than 5% of his time as prime minister outside Canada.1
These trips are trade missions, and they should rightly be judged by the deals and investment dollars they bring home . But in China and India, Carney may have had the secondary political goal to disentangle the Liberal brand from the Trudeau era, a recent past marked by hostage-taking, murder, and mutual allegations of political interference. This could have big implications in the next election: Chinese and South Asian Canadians will play a big role in determining the government.
Stopping Conservative momentum
There are 63 ridings in Canada where at least 10% of residents identify as either South Asian or Chinese, most in the suburban belts around Toronto and Vancouver. The Liberals currently hold 48 of these seats,2 which are likely to be the most important battlegrounds in the next election.
In 2025, the Conservatives made big progress in these traditionally Liberal constituencies. Steady gains and a collapse of NDP support produced eight Conservative pickups, and the Liberals held on to 14 ridings by fewer than five points. Of the 74 ridings where the Conservatives gained more than 11 points in 2025, 39% are ridings with significant Chinese or South Asian populations.
High-level diplomatic visits are a tried-and-tested way of talking to immigrant communities. Less than 40% of new Canadians say they follow current events daily, while 90% report consuming news from their home country, mostly through social channels. This is consistent with research showing that immigrants seek out news from their countries of origin and (at least at first) only incidentally receive exposure to political news from their new country. Carney’s visits made the front pages of The People’s Daily and The Hindu as well as diaspora papers like Ming Pao, which covered the trip for its final print edition.
The electoral long game
Diplomacy can be fraught when diaspora politics transcends national origin, religion, and race. Hong Kong and Sikh civil society organizations oppose high-level talks with Mandarin- and Hindu-nationalist governments while allegations of foreign interference and repression in Canada remain unresolved.
Warming relations between Ottawa, Beijing, and Delhi simply reflect the electoral math of Canadian immigration trends. Since 2001, each of the Hindi, Sikh, and Mandarin-speaking populations has tripled, while the Cantonese-speaking population has declined. Back then, Richmond and Brampton were represented by four MPs; now, they have nine (all are MPs of colour).
Most importantly, Carney’s reset appeals directly to a new generation of Canadians who are refusing to be defined politically by census categories.3 For many second-generation immigrants, issues like Hong Kong and Khalistan barely register. The symbolic politics of Carney’s visit elides the old dividing lines of diaspora politics and targets a new generation of Canadians who identify with and are proud of China and India, but whose political concerns focus on housing, public services, and the cost of living.
It’s easy to sell out Hong Kong and Khalistan when a large and growing number of Chinese- and South Asian-Canadians care much more about visas, trade, and stable bilateral ties than independence politics.
In politics, immigrants to Canada just want the stability upon which to build a new life. Seeing news of security in the bilateral relationship between their old and new homes—in both English and their mother tongues—signals security about their possible futures in either country. Seen in this light, Carney’s travels abroad go a long way towards bringing home a Liberal majority government.
Some variation is to be expected between leaders as the ease of travel and the character of Canadian diplomacy changed (international summits, for instance, occupied an increasing part of prime ministers’ travel schedules). But Carney’s 19% figure is a huge outlier, even when accounting for busier-than-normal first-year schedules.
A 49th, University—Rosedale, was vacated by Chrystia Freeland on Jan. 9.
Survey research on Canadian diaspora communities finds that Chinese-Canadians tend to have low trust in the Chinese government and high trust in the Canadian government while also having some experience of discrimination in Canada. Indian-Canadians often express pride in religious or cultural identity without embracing Hindu nationalist politics.