Expects new Liberal gov’t to move swiftly on affordability, home buying and Trump
With volunteers wrapping up their work at Fayçal El-Khoury’s campaign headquarters in Sainte-Dorothée last Monday evening, the incumbent Laval-Les Îles Liberal MP was optimistic the incoming Liberal government would hold to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s promise to deliver solid economic policies to counter U.S. president Donald Trump’s tariffs as well as his threats to annex Canada.
Longtime Liberal seat
The polls hadn’t yet closed on election night when The Laval News sat down for a post-election interview with El-Khoury, who was well on track to winning his fourth term since first being elected in 2015.
As his riding has been one of the most reliable Liberal Party of Canada fortresses for several generations of voters, there was no reason to believe on the evening of April 28 that the outcome would be any different.
Throughout the evening, El-Khoury enjoyed a comfortable lead of more than 15 percentage points over his nearest rival – Konstantinos Merakos of the Conservatives.
While the polls had closed nationally at 9:30 pm, it was eleven minutes past 10 when the French-language TVA network projected a Liberal government coming in. Before the hour was up, there were additional projections of a minority Liberal government.
A lot on the Liberal plate
The Laval News asked El-Khoury what his predictions are for the direction the country will be taking under a new Liberal government led by Mark Carney. “With a leader like Mark Carney, he is the only one who led two major banks, in Canada and Britain,” he said.
“He is a great economist, and he is planning right away to do whatever needs to be done in order to deal with issues like affordability, building homes, trying to bring rents down, and first buyers of homes who don’t want to worry about the future.”
Other issues he said the Liberal government under Carney will be taking on are food availability and combatting inflation. “And we are seeing inflation and interest rates going down since Mr. Carney took power,” said El-Khoury.
Dealing with Trump
“And also one of the greatest and biggest challenges is how to deal with Mr. Trump,” he continued. “He [Carney] made it clear he’s going to stand and make sure we keep our Canadian values, our sovereignty, our independence.
“I especially like that in all his speeches he has united Canadians. And we have to be united no matter what party we belong to. And I am sure he is the right leader at the right moment for Canadians from coast to coast.”
Just as former prime minister Justin Trudeau was regarded by many political observers as free-spending, Mark Carney is viewed as being far more austere in his fiscal outlook, especially as his background is in finance and number-crunching.
Balancing the budget first
The Laval News asked El-Khoury whether Canadians can perhaps expect to see some extravagant budget cuts with Carney now leading the country. “Listen, he has already said what he is going to do,” El-Khoury suggested.
“He said he’s going to balance the budget and he would find a way to invest more to bring the economy back up. And he knows a lot about how to invest in order to improve our record. And that is exactly how he is going to do it – by investing, not by cutting.”
Thanks his team
In closing, El-Khoury said he wanted to express his thanks to all the citizens of Laval-Les Îles, as well as to all the volunteers, staff and other members of his campaign team, including family. “Because of them I am here,” he said.
“I will always listen to each and every one of them, and I hope that together we can bring forward more projects, more developments for the people of Laval-Les Îles.”
