It had been going so well for Canada’s home-grown Trump, the populist Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. A decade of Liberal rule under Justin Trudeau had seen Poilievre build a 25-point lead in the polls with Maga-like promises to roll back immigration and crack down on crime. He backed anti-Covid lockdown protests, and railed against inflation, soaring house prices and Canada’s sluggish economy. “Canada is broken”, he complained to a receptive audience.
And then came Donald Trump, promising to make Canada the 51st state of the union and imposing tariffs on the country’s exports. Poilievre’s medicine abruptly lost much of its appeal. On Monday, as Canadians vote, the polls say he is heading for defeat, despite belated attempts to distance himself from Trump’s takeover plans. Previous support from billionaire X owner Elon Musk has also become a liability.
The Liberals’ selection in March of respected former Bank of England and Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney to replace Trudeau as party leader, and his installation as prime minister last month, have also cut the ground from under Poilievre. “It may be difficult for Mr Poilievre,” Carney told a TV debate last week. “You spent years running against Justin Trudeau and the carbon tax, and they are both gone … I am a very different person than Justin Trudeau.”
Indeed, Carney’s first act as prime minister was to scrap the Liberals’ unpopular carbon levy. He has repositioned the party after years of Trudeau’s focus on climate change and decarbonisation.
Polls show consistently that Canadians believe Carney can do a better job than Poilievre in dealing with Trump. His tone is defiant, that of a wartime leader capturing the outraged popular mood that has seen widespread consumer and tourist boycotts of the US. “We are going to fight, and we are fighting the Americans,” he has declared. That unusually nationalist rhetoric has given him a decisive lead, and may translate into an overall majority in the 343-seat Commons.
