When Pierre Poilievre took over as leader of Canada’s Conservative Party in 2022, he launched a withering attack on Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government as too far left, incompetent, and out of touch. The charge stuck. Over the next two years, Poilievre built a double-digit lead over the Liberals nationwide. By the beginning of 2025, some polls had the Conservatives crushing the Liberals in a prospective federal election by a margin of more than 25 points. The chart below tells the story:
Finally bowing to the inevitable, on January 6th Trudeau announced he would step down as Prime Minister after the Liberals select a new leader. The party will make its choice on March 9th in a nationwide vote.
Normally in Canada, it is devilishly hard for a longtime unpopular government to reverse its political misfortunes simply by picking a new leader. The stench of failure typically hangs around the incumbent’s chosen successor, and voters pivot toward the opposition regardless. To prevent that pivot requires nothing less than a complete shift in the topic on people’s minds.
Unfortunately for Pierre Poilievre and his Conservative Party, Donald Trump has provided that shift.
After Trump was elected president, he repeated his campaign promise to raise tariffs on Canadian imports, while raising the possibility that the Great White North might become the 51st state. Canadians, amused by the suggestion, dismissed it as the usual hyperbole, and waited to see what he would do on the matter of US trade policy.
On February 1st, Trump revealed that he was dead serious by imposing a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada. A shaken Trudeau government managed to secure a one-month reprieve by offering to beef up security at America’s northern border – and by threatening tariffs in kind. A few days later, Trump piled on the threat of additional duties on imported steel and aluminum. The prospect of automobile tariffs has also been raised.
In the meantime, when asked, Trump repeats his insistence that tariffs can be avoided if Canada becomes the 51st state. Referring to Trudeau as the “governor” of Canada, Trump declared it’s “not viable as a country.”
Now, I enjoy trolling Justin Trudeau as much as the next guy. For over a decade, he’s acted as if he’s auditioning to be the most politically correct leader in the Western world.
Having said that, the practical impact of Trump’s various statements has been to catalyze a stunning surge in old-fashioned Canadian nationalism over the last few weeks. And its focus is the United States.
American observers may not understand the depth of this sentiment north of the border. Canada was literally built to prevent the absorption of British North America by the United States. Well into the 20th century, the Tory Party was the vehicle of English Canadian nationalism by virtue of that British connection. During the 1970s, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau – the current premier’s father – refashioned Canadian nationalism as something tied to a progressive agenda via the Liberal Party. This was a deeply unfortunate development, but its impact cannot be denied. In the United States, nationalism and the Left are antithetical. In Canada, they are now intimately connected and have been for some time. Politically, that’s a powerful combination, and Liberal leaders know it.
It is for this very reason that Liberals contending for their party’s nomination are delighted to run on a platform defending Canadian national pride and independence. And President Trump has served them that issue on a platter. By openly calling for the annexation of Canada, whether joking or not, and questioning the nation’s very survival, he has succeeded in changing the number one topic on voters’ minds. No longer is that topic the self-evident failures and excesses of Trudeau’s Liberal government. Instead, the topic is America’s supposed assault on Canadian national pride and independence. Trudeau’s most likely successor, Mark Carney – a former Governor of the Bank of Canada – has recently surged past other Liberal contenders on the premise that he would be the most competent negotiator in any trade war with the US. Carney has said: “President Trump probably thinks Canada will cave in. But we are going to stand up to a bully, we’re not going to back down. We’re united and we will retaliate.”
This position has broad support from Canadians, well beyond the Left. Returning to the poll chart referenced above, we can see the impact of the change. In only three weeks, the Liberals have made up a great deal of ground lost over the past three years. Some current polls have them neck and neck with the Conservatives:
In Part Two of this series, I consider how the Trump administration should respond.
The post Canada and the Trump Administration: Part I appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.
