Canada is electing a new government to face threats of annexation by the United States and deal directly with President Donald Trump, whose trade war has overshadowed all other issues in the campaign, AFP reported.

The Liberal Party, led by new Prime Minister Marc Carney, appears doomed to an easy defeat by Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives, as the US president's attacks on the country have not caused a sudden shift in opinion polls.

The 60-year-old Carney has never held elected office and only last month replaced Justin Trudeau as prime minister. He had a successful career as an investment banker before becoming governor of the central banks of Canada and the United Kingdom.

Carney says his global financial experience has prepared him to lead Canada's response to Trump's tariffs.

He has promised to revive domestic trade and expand Canada's economic opportunities abroad to reduce dependence on the US, a country that Carney says "we can no longer trust."

The US under Trump "wants to break us so they can own us," he warned repeatedly during the campaign.

"We don't need chaos, we need calm. We don't need anger, we need a grown-up," Carney said in the final days of the campaign.

The 45-year-old career politician Poilievre tried to focus attention on domestic issues that made Trudeau extremely unpopular at the end of his decade in power, particularly rising living costs.

The Conservative leader believes that Trudeau will continue what he calls "the lost liberal decade," adding that only a new Conservative government can take action against crime, housing shortages, and other issues that Canadians consider priorities.

"You can't take four more years of this," he said over the weekend.

Poilievre criticized Trump but stressed that ten years of Liberal mismanagement had left Canada vulnerable to the new hostile attitude of the US. | BGNES