Good morning. There’s no shortage of challenges for the Liberals to tackle when Parliament resumes – more on that below, along with a 100-day review of Donald Trump’s second term and the case for Canadian whisky. But first:

Today’s headlines

• Carney and Trump agree to meet soon in their first talks after the Liberals’ election win
• Prominent Conservatives back Poilievre as leader after his riding loss
• The federal NDP looks toward rebuilding, with a leadership race on the horizon
• The Senators stay alive with a shutout win over the Maple Leafs

From the moment he entered the race to become Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney positioned himself as the man to get us through these unprecedented times. In fact, had U.S. President Donald Trump not launched a global trade war and become enamoured with the whole annexation idea, Carney might’ve passed on the Liberal leadership. “I am most useful in a crisis. I’m not that good at peacetime,” he told voters at a brewpub in Barrie, Ont., in February. To Radio-Canada journalists, he insisted: “No crisis, no Mark Carney in this election campaign.”

Well, he won the campaign, and now he takes control of the crisis. Carney will very quickly have to tackle a host of domestic woes, from health care (bleak) to defence (underfunded) to national unity (a conundrum). Amid all the noise out of the White House, however, you might have missed some of the Liberals’ policy proposals. Let’s take a closer look at three of the biggest challenges facing Carney‘s new government, and what he intends to do about them.

Trade and the economy

In his wee-hours victory speech yesterday morning, Carney said – as he often did on the campaign trail – that Canada was entering an uncertain era with its biggest trading partner. “Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over,” he told the crowd. Now comes the hard bit: negotiating a new economic and security deal with Washington and finding untapped markets elsewhere for Canadian goods.

Carney said he’ll meet with Trump within days of the election; a call between the leaders has already taken place. Canada did catch a small break yesterday when the Trump administration softened the blow of its tariffs on carmakers so they don’t stack with the levies on aluminum and steel. Still, the Liberals have promised a $2-billion fund to support the automotive sector, alongside an “All-in-Canada” network built to produce more domestic car parts. That’s in addition to a $5-billion fund to improve trade-related infrastructure and a $25-billion export credit facility to help businesses find new markets. Carney also talked about removing all federally regulated trade barriers between provinces by July 1, and pursuing trade deals with partners in South America and Southeast Asia.

But diversifying trade is easier said than done. The massive American market has long had a gravitational pull on Canadian commerce, given the proximity and strength of its consumers. Peter Morrow, an associate professor of economics at the University of Toronto, told The Globe that it’s unrealistic to expect the country’s key industries – automobiles, oil and gas, and steel among them – to wean itself off the U.S. any time soon.

Housing

This country desperately needs more homes – 3.5 million more than we’re meant to build in the next five years, to be exact, and that’s just to bring housing affordability back to where it was a quarter century ago. The Liberals have promised to double the speed of construction to nearly 500,000 new homes each year, with a new federal agency that would help develop and finance affordable housing.

France, Austria and Singapore all provide cheap loans and other incentives to build homes – including affordable ones – while making money on the projects so the capital can be reinvested to increase supply. It’s a complex job, though, and economist Mike Moffatt isn’t sure Ottawa can manage it. “I think skepticism is warranted on the government’s ability to deliver” on a new federal housing agency, Moffatt told The Globe. “But if they even come close to delivering on it, it would be quite transformative.”

Carney has also pledged to provide more than $25-billion in financing to builders of prefabricated and modular housing, which advocates say will make home development cheaper and faster. Moffatt has seen similar plans in Japan and Sweden ramp up the rate of housing supply. The challenge in Canada, he points out, is that building regulations can vary across provinces and even cities, making it hard to mass-produce factory-made home parts.

The labour market

Trump’s trade war has already rattled Canada’s workforce. The country shed 33,000 jobs in March, the worst month for the labour market in three years, as the U.S. tariff threat weighed on business confidence and slowed hiring down. The Liberals have promised to expand job training – workers in manufacturing and construction could receive up to $15,000 in support, for instance – and to double funding for the Union Training and Innovation Program to $50-million annually.

After years of increased reliance on migrant workers to staff low-wage jobs, the Liberals said they would return immigration to “sustainable levels” – leaving many temporary residents in limbo and raising questions about how to fill the stubborn employment gaps that do exist. The party pledged to cap the total number of temporary workers and international students at less than 5 per cent of Canada’s population by the end of 2027, and less than 1 per cent in the years after that.

It’s going to be hard to figure out this labour landscape, Christopher Worswick, a professor of labour economics at Carleton University, told The Globe. “The demand side is probably going to shrink because of the trade disruption, and the supply side could shrink as temporary residents leave,” he said. “That will be tricky to navigate.”

More from The Globe

Might I interest you in some post-election quarterbacking? Robyn Urback says that Pierre Poilievre was the right man for the moment – until the moment changed and he failed to adapt. Gary Mason expects that the NDP’s wipeout will trigger some serious soul-searching. And Konrad Yakabuski writes that Liberal gains in Quebec have upended the Parti Québécois’ sovereigntist game plan.