Carney, who was sworn in on March 14 following Justin Trudeau's resignation and a Liberal Party leadership race, now leads in the polls heading into the April 28 parliamentary election, marking a dramatic turnaround for a party that seemed destined for a crushing defeat until Trump started attacking Canada's economy and sovereignty almost daily.
Trump’s trade war and threats to make Canada the 51st U.S. state have infuriated Canadians and led to a surge in nationalism that has helped the Liberals flip the election narrative.
In a mid-January poll by Nanos, Liberals trailed the Conservative Party by 47% to 20%. In the latest Nanos poll, which was conducted during a three-day period that ended April 20, the Liberals led by eight percentage points. The January poll had a margin of error 3.1 points, while the latest poll had a 2.7-point error margin.
“Timing is everything in politics, and Carney entered the political arena at a most favorable time,” said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal.
Carney's opponent is Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, a career politician and firebrand populist who has campaigned with Trump-like swagger, even taking a page from the “America First” president by adopting the slogan “Canada First.”
“This election is a test about whether Canada will embrace or reject populism," Béland said, suggesting many voters view Carney as reassuring because of his experience and calm.
“Without the Trump effect, the Conservatives would probably be in a much stronger position in the polls right now," he said. "If Trump wasn’t currently in the White House, it would be hard to imagine the Liberals being the favorites in this federal race, considering how unpopular they were just a few months ago.”
Poilievre is imploring Canadians not to give the Liberals a fourth term after “a lost Liberal decade." He hoped to make the election a referendum on former Trudeau, whose popularity declined toward the end of his decade in power as food and housing prices rose and immigration surged.
Trump has said he isn’t concerned that his trade war with Canada was boosting the Liberal Party ahead of the parliamentary elections. And although he said Poilievre's views are more aligned than Carney’s with his own, he's not a fan of Poilievre.
“The conservative that’s running is stupidly no friend of mine,” Trump has said, criticizing Poilievre for “saying negative things.”
