Canadian voters are going to the polls on Monday amid one of the most dramatic campaign transformations in years.
January polls indicated the Conservatives were headed for a certain victory, but the Liberals have since flipped the race upside down, although the competition has narrowed in recent days. Early voting has shattered records with more than 7.3 million ballots cast.
“It’s pretty clear the Liberals are going to win this now,” said Frank Graves, president and founder of Canadian polling firm EKOS Research. “That would have been utterly unthinkable at the beginning of this year.”
Last fall, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who was seen as a Trump-like figure, tapped into rising populism in response to an affordability crisis and inflation under longtime Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
But the tide turned when Trudeau stepped down earlier this year on January 6, paving the way for new Liberal leadership, and President Donald Trump entered his second term, threatening Canada’s economy with a trade war. Suddenly, Canadians unified around their national identity and against Trumpism.
Populism – the belief that power must be taken back from the corrupt elite and returned to the people – led to the Brexit referendum in the UK and the election of Donald Trump in the US. Graves co-authored a paper that found 34 percent of Canadians have a populist outlook. This election, Graves said, Canadians watched Trump re-enter office and asked themselves, “Do we want to go down this populist path?”
If the Liberals win, it means Canadian voters are standing up to Trump, he said. “It will definitely be a rebuke to Trump, and to the kind of populism that they see on display in his administration.”
How the race changed
A change in US leadership has had a dramatic impact on its neighbour to the north.
At the beginning of the year, Poilievre enjoyed unchallenged popularity. An election would be called sometime in 2025, and it seemed likely that he would face off against Trudeau, who had been in power for nine years and had become deeply unpopular.
Post-pandemic, incumbent leaders in Western democracies faced tough elections due to pandemic restrictions, rising inflation, which had reached as high as 8.1 percent in June 2022, unaffordable housing and political polarisation. Trudeau was no different.
Poilievre was seen as a Trump-like figure in Canada; he had tapped into a “northern populism” that was a smaller share of the electorate than in the US, but still a powerful force, Graves said. Poilievre made Trudeau his punching bag, taking aim at his unpopular policies, like Canada’s carbon tax.
The question of Trudeau’s leadership came to a head when Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland suddenly resigned. In a letter, she wrote that Trudeau was not up to the challenge of the incoming Trump “America First” economic nationalism and high tariffs. Trudeau had no choice but to resign, triggering a leadership race for the Liberals.
In Canada’s political system, Trudeau stepping down meant that the Liberals still held power, but the party had to elect a new leader to run in this year’s election.
While the party held a leadership race, Trump entered office and swiftly declared a 25 percent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico. At the same time, Trump made repeated comments that Canada should become the 51st state.
The Liberals’ leadership race took place within weeks of Trump taking office, and the turn of events helped move the party “beyond the unpopularity of the Trudeau government,” said Lisa Young, a political science professor at the University of Calgary.
With Canada’s sovereignty and economy under attack, the Liberals on March 9 elected Mark Carney, who was perceived to be smart on the economy after previously serving as governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis and governor of the Bank of England during Brexit and the pandemic.
Carney, elected in a landslide, channelled his popularity by calling a snap election for April 28, the shortest election period allowed by law.
Canada faces Trump’s trade war
Trump’s sudden tariffs have plunged Canada’s economy into uncertainty. More than 70 percent of the country’s exports go to the US, including automotive parts, lumber, agricultural products and steel.
“We are very dependent on the US,” said Sylvanus Kwaku Afesorgbor, associate professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario. “There could be a major economic recession in Canada, because our economy depends largely on the US economy.”
In March, the second-largest steel producer in Canada, Algoma Steel, announced layoffs as a direct result of Trump’s tariffs. The steel plant is the main employer in the close-knit city of Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, and the layoffs were felt deeply across the community. The Sault Ste Marie-Algoma district has been held by the Liberals since 2015, but last year, a steelworker dressed down Trudeau during a campaign stop. Since then, both Poilievre and Carney have made campaign stops in the city.
Afesorgbor said voters who are affected by tariffs, like steelworkers, will likely look at which party is offering a better economic cushion in case of job loss. They may ask themselves, “If there is an economic crisis because of the Trump tariffs, who will be in a better position to solve that?” He said it depends on how voters perceive each party leader’s ability to negotiate with Trump.
Afesorgbor said Canadian voters are “very particular” about the economy, and will choose the party they believe can handle a recession and Trump’s trade war. He said voters may perceive Mark Carney as the better candidate because of his record in the banking sector. “That has shifted a lot of support for the Liberals.”
Liberals take the lead
Trump’s policies towards Canada had more than just an economic impact. To many Canadians, it felt like a threat to their national identity.
“[The tariffs were] seen as an ally abandoning Canada, and then you add to it President Trump’s comments about making Canada the 51st state. So that sparked a wave of Canadian nationalism unlike anything that I’ve seen in my lifetime,” Young told Al Jazeera.
The outlook was not so sunny for Poilievre. “That has essentially shifted the terrain politically, because a substantial proportion of the electorate is suspicious of [Poilievre] being too similar to Trump,” she said.
Graves saw a “profound transformation” in the polls. In February, the Liberals and Conservatives were essentially tied, but in early March, the Liberals pulled ahead to a five-year high as Canadians asked, “How do we deal with this existential threat coming from Donald Trump?” Graves said.
The surge in national pride has pushed voters towards Carney, who was seen as a candidate who could steer Canada through the turmoil caused by Trump. “The Liberals became the place for planting our flag and saying, ‘We are going to remain a sovereign nation’,” Graves said.
Canadian voters set to rebuke Trump
If the Liberals win, as projected, it will signal that Canada is charting its own path relative to Trump, as opposed to electing Poilievre, who is seen as more conciliatory to Trump, Young said.
Graves said Americans should pay attention to Canada’s election, which has raised similar questions about identity and what path to take amid swelling populism. Instead of asking the question of which party to elect, Graves said Canadians are asking, “What kind of country do we want to be?”
“Underneath that question are some of the issues about, do we want to go down this populist path? I think Canadians are pausing and looking and saying, ‘No, maybe that’s not where we want to take our country,’” Graves said.
Graves noted that it’s uncommon for a Western democracy to turn against rising populism. “Americans might find this as a possible prescription to their future, if they don’t want to continue down the path they’re going,” he said.