How Trump’s threats revived Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in Canada

If you had asked Canadians a few months ago who would win the country’s next general election, most would have predicted a decisive victory for the Conservative Party.

This result doesn’t look so safe now.

In the wake of US President Donald Trump’s threats to Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party has risen in the electoral measurements, shrinking the double -digit lead that their conservative rivals had been steady since mid -2023.

The dramatic change in the country’s political landscape reflects how Trump’s tariffs and his repeated calls to make Canada “to the 51st State” have fundamentally changed the priorities of Canadian voters.

Trump’s rhetoric has “pushed all the other questions” away “that was the top of the mind of Canadians before his initiation on January 20, notes Luc Turgeon, a political science professor at the University of Ottawa.

It has even managed to revive the once deeply unpopular Trudeau, whose approval assessment has increased by 12 points since December. Of course, the prime minister will not be in power much longer after announcing his resignation at the beginning of the year.

On Sunday, his liberals will declare the results of the leadership competition to decide who is taking over a party running an uncertain minority government. The new leader has two immediate decisions to make: how to respond to Trump’s threats and when to call a parliamentary election. The answer to the first dilemma will certainly affect the second.

A federal election must be held before or before October 20, but could be called as early as this week.

Voting shows that many Canadians still want a change at the top. But what that change would look like – a liberal government under new leadership or a complete shift to the Conservatives – is now anyone’s guess, says Greg Lyle, president of the Toronto -based innovative research group that has been polling Canadians on their changing attitudes.

“Until now it was a blowout for the Conservatives,” he says the BBC.

This is because the Center-Right Party led by Pierre Poilievre has been effective in its messages on issues that have occupied the Canadian psyche in the last few years: the rising costs, non-compliance, crime and a strained health care system.

Poolievre successfully tied these societal problems to what he felt Trudeau’s “catastrophic” policies, promising a return to “common sense policy.”

But with Trudeaus resigning and Trump’s threats to Canada’s financial security and even its sovereignty, this message has become stale, says Mr. Lyle. His vote suggests that the majority of the country is now most afraid of Trump’s Presidency and the influence it wants in Canada.

Trump’s 25% duty on all Canadian imports to the United States, some of which have been pause until April 2, could be devastating to Canada’s economy, sending three -quarters of all its products to the United States. Officials have predicted up to one million job losses as a result and Canada could go into a recession if the tax on goods continues.

Trudeau left no doubt how seriously he is taking the threat when he told journalists this week that Trump’s declared reason for the US tariffs – the flow of Fentanyl across the border – was false and unjustified.

“What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy because it will make it easier to annex us,” the prime minister warned.

“In many ways, it’s an all -inclusive, basic question of the country’s survival,” Prof Turgeon told the BBC. Who is best placed to stand up for Canada against Trump has therefore become the central question of the upcoming election.

The Conservatives are still ahead of the polls, with the latest average suggesting that 40% of voters support them. The left fortunes have meanwhile been revived with their support climbing to just over 30% – up 10 points from January.

The Left has tried to highlight similarities between the conservative leader and the Republican president. In last week’s leadership debate, candidates Poilievre referred to as “our little version of Trump here at home” and said he was looking to “imitate” the US president. A liberal party attack advertisement SUPPOSED clips of the two using similar phrases such as “fake news” and “Radical Left”.

However, there are clear differences between the two politicians in terms of style and substance. And Trump himself has trivialized all parallels and tells the British magazine, the spectator in a recent conversation that Poilievre is “not maga enough”.

Still suggesting polls a slip of conservative support. A recent vote of the National Pollster Angus Reid shows that Canadians believe that liberal leadership front runner Mark Carney is better equipped to deal with Trump on issues of customs and trade than Poolievre.

Former central banker for both Canada and England shows his experience in dealing with financial crises, including 2008 Financial Crash and Brexit.

And the shift in the political mood has forced conservatives to calculate their messages again.

If the election soon is called, the campaign takes place in a moment when Trump’s threats have inspired harsh patriotism among Canadians. Many are Boycotting of US Goods In their local grocery store or even canceled trips to the United States.

Prof Turgeon says this “rallying around the flag” has become a central theme of Canadian politics.

The Conservatives have shifted away from their “Canada is broken” Slogan, as Mr. Lyle says, risked coming over as “anti-patriotic”, to “Canada First”.

Conservatives have also redirected their attacks against Carney. Before Trump’s tariffs, they drove ads and said he is “like Justin” in an attempt to bind him to Trudeau. But in recent weeks, the Conservatives have begun to dig into Carney’s loyalty to Canada.

Specifically, they have questioned whether he had a role in moving the headquarters of Brookfield Asset Management – a Canadian investment company – from Toronto to New York when he served as chairman.

Carney has replied that he had left the company when this decision was made, but company documents reported by the public television company CBC show that the board approved the move in October 2024 when Carney was still at Brookfield.

The move and Carney’s ambiguity of his commitment to it was criticized by the editorial board of Canada’s national newspaper The Globe and Mail, which wrote on Thursday that Carney should be transparent with Canadians.

More broadly, the paper wrote: “Each party leader must understand that Canada is entering a long period of uncertainty. The next prime minister will have to call the Canadians’ confidence to lead the land where it has to go, but may not want to go.”

Given the anxiety that reigns among Canadians, Mr Lyle says that any ambiguity about Carney’s loyalty to the country could still hurt him and the Left.

Each time the election comes and the one who wins is one thing for sure: Trump will continue to influence and reshape Canadian politics, just as he has in the United States.