Welcome back to The Forecast from Bloomberg Weekend, where we help you think about the future — from next week to next decade.

This week we’re looking ahead to elections in Canada, Australia and Singapore. All three are haunted by Trump, and by frustrations over the cost of living.

Mark Carney’s Campaign Against Chaos

Mark Carney has already made history: He’s the first person to become prime minister of Canada without having held another political office.

On Monday, he’ll try to complete another amazing feat — leading the Liberal Party to a fourth straight election win that looked impossible a few months ago. The polls suggest he will do it, thanks to his personal popularity in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, where 60% of Canadians live. 

It’s all about Donald Trump, of course. The more chaos the US president creates, the more it seems to help the Liberals, with Carney, the grey-haired former central banker, playing the role of reassuring parent to a nervous nation.

In his speeches, Carney uses the threat of an aggressive US under Trump to make a case that he’s the ideal leader to help Canada build a new, more independent place in the world. The result is that Carney enjoys a 10-point advantage over Conservative Pierre Poilievre on the question of who would be the best prime minister, according to one recent survey.

Whichever man wins will be dealing with a heck of a mess. Canada’s economy may already be in recession, and it cannot truly decouple from the US. (There’s no other place to send most of its oil, for starters.) Negotiations with the White House won’t be fun. And while the country’s next leader will logically seek to create better trade and security alliances with European and Asian nations, that isn’t as easy as it sounds. 

A Liberal victory would bring its own unique challenges. Large segments of the country are already suspicious of Carney, and not just in the Conservative bastions of Canada’s prairies.

Younger voters — especially men — like Poilievre’s focus on making taxes lower and housing more easily available. So do a lot of businesspeople. Many will be unhappy to see their choice outvoted by legions of Boomers and Gen X-ers who have flocked to the Liberals.

Can Carney get through to Trump and rescue Canada’s most important economic relationship? Can he create new markets for Alberta’s energy and douse the burning embers of western separatism? Can he form a government that actually has coherent housing and tax policies that help younger generations and business?

If he wins the election, he’ll have to try to do all those things at once. 

— Derek Decloet, Bloomberg News

Predictions

Let’s check in on recession forecasts: The IMF says there’s a 40% chance of a US recession this year, while the median forecaster surveyed by Bloomberg sees a 45% chance. Polymarket is at 55% as of this writing, and Southwest’s CEO says the US recession has already started. The ECB’s chief economist says a recession in the eurozone is “unlikely,” but the Bundesbank’s president warns that tariffs may cause a recession in Germany. 

“The price of everything from Kit Kats and diapers to cars will go up,” warn US CEOs, as consumer goods companies plan to pass tariff costs along to customers. — Jeannette Neumann, Gabrielle Coppola, and Molly Smith, Bloomberg News

“If temperatures don’t reduce soon then we will lose coral reefs as we know them,” says Jen Matthews, a research fellow at the University of Technology Sydney, and an expert in coral nutrition. — Aaron Clark, Bloomberg Green 

Fashion is the next cleantech frontier, from better ways to recycle blended fibers, to using CO2 to dye fabric. — Olivia Rockeman and Coco Liu, Bloomberg Green

Year-round haunted houses are coming to your city: “Dark Universe, a horror-inhabited village within Comcast Corp.’s new $7 billion Epic Universe theme park in Orlando… opens to the public on May 22” and is the latest effort to expand horror entertainment beyond Halloween. — Christopher Palmeri, Bloomberg Businessweek

“Alcohol consumption has gone into possibly permanent decline.” (Wine actually peaked back in 1979.) —David Fickling, Bloomberg Opinion

Keep an Eye On

Australia and Singapore Go to the Polls

Canada isn’t the only country with an imminent election: Both Australia and Singapore go to the polls on Saturday, May 3 — and in both contests cost-of-living concerns loom large. 

In Australia, soaring rents, high interest rates and persistent inflation have dominated the campaign, where Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor government is seeking a second term. Both Labor and the main opposition Liberal-National coalition led by Peter Dutton are pledging to help first-time home buyers amid a national housing shortage. Opinion polls indicate Labor will stay in office, either keeping its narrow parliamentary majority or with the support of minority parties and independents.

High living costs are also top of mind in Singapore, where Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has turned to cash handouts and social welfare programs to ease the economic pain that spiked in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Wong’s People’s Action Party has governed Singapore since independence in 1965, and it’s never come close to losing its parliamentary super-majority — let alone a general election. But the opposition has made modest inroads in recent years, with the Workers’ Party winning 10 parliamentary seats in 2020 — a record for a Singapore opposition group. Wong is fielding a record 32 new candidates, and the retirement of several political stalwarts marks a slow, continued shift within the ruling party to transfer power to younger politicians, according to Bilveer Singh, deputy head of political science at the National University of Singapore.

Of course, the victors in both Singapore and Australia won’t get much of a honeymoon period. They’ll immediately be navigating choppy geopolitical waters amid the ongoing uncertainty about global trade.

— Ed Johnson, Bloomberg Weekend

What Are the Chances...

Weekend Reads

Week Ahead

Monday: Canada holds a national election. 

Tuesday: The US reports job openings for March; earnings from HSBC, Deutsche Bank, GM, Spotify and Coca-Cola; Chile’s central bank is expected to keep rates unchanged; the Bloomberg BNEF summit kicks off in New York. 

Wednesday: President Trump marks 100 days in office as the US reports Q1 GDP and its PCE price index; Mexico and the euro area report GDP; Meta, Microsoft and Robinhood report earnings; China reports manufacturing PMI; Australia reports CPI; central bankers in Thailand and Colombia have rate decisions.

Thursday: The Bank of Japan is expected to hold interest rates steady; Amazon, Apple and Samsung report earnings.

Friday: The US publishes April payrolls data; the euro area and South Korea report inflation; Exxon, Chevron and Shell report earnings.

Have a great Sunday and a productive week.

—Walter Frick, Kira Bindrim and Ed Johnson, Bloomberg Weekend; Derek Decloet, Bloomberg News

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