POLITIQ

On March 23rd Canada’s newly chosen Prime Minister (PM) Mark Carney called a snap legislative election to take place on April 28th. This follows Carney’s own success in his Liberal party’s leadership contest and the wider shift in the polls that saw the rival Conservative party lose their 20-point lead.

In the political realm a fall this significant in the polls most often can be attributed to some extraordinary circumstances which have a havocking effect on a country's domestic politics. In this case, this havocking effect came in the figure of the American President Donald Trump.

‘I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen’, - said Trump back in February. This was, perhaps, the moment which provoked a domino effect which seems to have completely turned the odds in the Canadian political arena.

The first tile to fall was the then-PM Justin Trudeau. An incredibly unpopular leader even by the Western standards - his approval rating stayed around 22% by the end of his premiership - seems to have received a final push towards ultimate resignation as a result of Trump’s comments. As such, Canada’s Finance Minister Christina Freeland resigned from her post citing Trudeau’s inability to deal with Trump as the primary reason for her decision. Less than a month later Trudeau resigned from his post.

All of this seemed to be extremely favourable to the rival Conservative party and their leader Pierre Poilievre. At the time of Trudeau’s resignation, Conservatives maintained a very strong two-digit lead over the Liberal party whose fortunes only seemed to worsen with the resignation of their highly unpopular leader.

However, what seems to have happened was the exact opposite. The Liberal party’s leadership election that followed the PM’s resignation provided an opportunity to present a fresh image of the party breaking with the unpopular past. Mark Carney seems to have been at the right place at the right time. A senior economist, who had also served as the governor of the Bank of England, managed to successfully present himself as an outsider to the political establishment which so many Canadains felt fatigued by. It was now Carney, not Poilievre, who presented the most fresh version of the change from Trudeau’s administration.

Additionally, Carney has benefited from the Canadians experiencing the ‘rally ‘round the flag effect’ - a concept in political science used to describe a short-term hike in support towards the country’s leadership, often in the face of an external threat. The newly chosen PM managed to exploit the anger that Canadians felt towards Donal Trump in the light of his comments about annexing Canada, vowing in his first speech as the new PM that his country will ‘never’ be a part of the US.

All of this left Poilievre, who is associated by many with America’s MAGA movement, and his Conservative party in the area of soul searching. Ironically, it is the new Liberal party leadership which is seen to be most suited to tackle both internal and external issues surrounding Canada - the same issues which the previous version of the party was deemed unable to address.

The latest polls reflect this and show Liberal party in the lead for the first time since 2021. With the national election scheduled in April it seems that we may see one of the biggest political lapses as Canada’s Conservatives look to lose their 20-point lead and continue spending time in opposition.