Until last month, Canada’s Liberal party appeared destined for electoral oblivion.
Its leader, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, had just quit amid plunging poll ratings, blamed by voters for a stagnating economy and taunted as a “woke liberal” by a newly elected US president.
But Donald Trump’s first month in power has galvanised Canadian politics. He has threatened to use “economic force” to annex his northern neighbour, imposing — and then postponing — punishing tariffs and accusing it of flooding America with fentanyl and illegal immigrants.
His provocations have sparked a wave of anger and patriotism in Canada, undermining the popularity of Trump-aligned opposition leader Pierre Poilievre and revitalising a Liberal party seen to be standing up to the US president.
“What Canadians are looking for in the country’s next leader has shifted,” said Andrew Enns, a pollster from the market research firm Leger. “For 18 months it’s been really predictable and a pedestrian national political landscape. Poilievre had an enormous lead, everyone had conceded it was a cakewalk for the Conservatives.”
For Poilievre, who was favourite to become the country’s next prime minister before Trump took office — and had maintained a lead of 20 points over Trudeau for well over a year — the shift since the president’s inauguration has been dramatic.
He was a darling of the Maga right who was supported by various allies of Trump, including billionaire X owner Elon Musk, podcaster Joe Rogan and billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman. But their endorsements have become liabilities as the country bristles in the face of the president’s threats.
Poilievre’s campaign slogan, “Canada is broken” — an echo of Trump’s first- term rhetoric that portrayed America as a failing nation — has also lost its lustre. At a rally in Ottawa earlier this month he switched it to “Canada First” in an attempt to tap into the nation’s displeasure with its southern neighbour.
The Liberals have delighted in reminding voters of Poilievre’s former affinity to Trump, broadcasting clips of him repeating “Canada is broken” in a sleek ad campaign.
Dan Nowlan, a former senior aide in the Conservative Stephen Harper government, dismissed the Liberal challenge, saying the party was expected to experience a polling bounce after ousting its unpopular leader.
“Nothing will change the fact that Mr Poilievre is the only leader who has been talking in a concrete way about affordability for everyday, normal people,” he said.
But support for the once moribund Liberals is growing. An Ipsos poll released on Tuesday showed the party had edged ahead of Poilievre’s Conservatives, with the support of 38 per cent of decided voters — up 10 points since February 6. The Conservatives dropped five points to 36 per cent over the same period.
“It is the first time the Liberals are in the lead for four years,” said Darrell Bricker, global chief executive of Ipsos.
The change has energised the contest to replace Trudeau, with former finance minister Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor and former chair of Brookfield Asset Management, going head to head over who can best negotiate with Trump.
Carney, who is unelected and would have to win a seat to assume the leadership, is respected for heading the country’s central bank during the 2008 financial crisis and record at the BoE.
Freeland, a former journalist who was foreign minister during Trump’s first presidency and helped renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, has adopted the US president’s comment that she is “totally toxic” as a badge of honour — and evidence she can drive a hard bargain.
In a televised debate on Tuesday evening, Freeland said Trump posed “the gravest challenge our country has face since the second world war”.
“Trump is unleashed and empowered. As your prime minister, I will be too,” she said.
Carney, who stressed he was “not a politician” in an effort to distance himself from the record of the Trudeau government, told viewers that “in a situation like this you need experience in terms of crisis management, you need negotiating skills, but you also need economic expertise”.
Nanos Research surveys carried out between January 31 and February 3 found that just under 40 per cent of Canadians considered Carney the best qualified leader to negotiate with Trump while only 26 per cent of those asked thought Poilievre was best suited; 13 per cent chose Freeland.
A separate poll by Leger released earlier this month found that 68 per cent of Liberal voters supported Carney.
The Liberal leadership vote will take place on March 9 and a general election must be held by October, although Tuesday’s Ipsos poll found that 86 per cent of respondents wanted an election to be held as soon as possible so the new prime minister had a strong mandate to counter Trump.
“Whether this momentum will stick around remains to be seen, but for now, the Liberals are riding high,” said Semra Sevi, a political-science professor at the University of Toronto.
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