It will be a personal, visceral fight neither Pierre Poilievre nor Mark Carney can afford to lose, and an election the country cannot afford to get wrong.
Ideally, the 45th general election will infuse optimism into Canada as we chart our most uncertain course since the Quebec Crisis tore into our psyche and instilled existential fear about our country’s stability more than a half-century ago.
How this election’s winner leads the nation may not necessarily decide on Canada’s survival, but certainly will shape and define our immediate standards of living, the role of government in withstanding what appears today to be imminent economic attack from America, and our willingness to forge both a more independent and a better networked place in the world.
It will matter as no election in memory has, so it will matter that we pay the closest possible attention.
If the vote were held today, it would bust the conventional wisdom that longstanding governments cannot help but unelect themselves. The near-decade-old Liberal government was doing all it could to head down that path for nearly three years in public opinion – out of ideas, out of favour, out of hope – but in the last three months has experienced a renaissance (on paper, anyway) unseen in our time. A 20-point-plus deficit in every national survey has become a tie, even a lead in some gauges.
As most everyone knows, three things changed: the prime minister stepped down, the U.S. president stepped on our toes, and the front-running opposition leader stopped stepping on the gas.
As Conservative leader, Poilievre made the classic beer-league hockey mistake when a team with a three-goal lead starts to anticipate the dressing-room beverage; before he knew it, his team has gone into overtime, and the brew will be awfully flat and skunky if it can’t pot the winning goal. Hard to believe that someone considered not long ago the shoo-in next elected prime minster could be turfed as party leader in a matter of months.
Prime Minister (for the time being, at least) Carney is in position as the leader Canadians believe is most likely to get into Donald Trump’s head before long to set aside or soften the tariff tsunami scheduled to hit shore next week, in the middle of the campaign. He may not know his way around the House of Commons, but appears to have the more elite speed dial from his time as Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor, his stint at Goldman Sachs, and his leadership of Brookfield Asset Management. (Even if he won’t talk about his wealth.) I’m sure he has his network, but I was astounded to read Poilievre hadn’t met fellow Conservative Premier Doug Ford of Ontario – the sudden Captain Canada – until this month.
Typically, an election asks the public if it feels better-off now than it did last time it was asked if it felt better-off. If one stretches back in the Justin Trudeau term, one sees deteriorating public finances, a decline in productivity compared to that in the U.S., the U.K. and France, a worsening crisis in housing, and a weakened level of investment. Trump is kicking us when we’re down. To be fair, poverty declined in the pre-inflation years, there was strong post-COVID GDP growth, there is more child care, a dental-care plan, and the country has maintained relatively low unemployment.
If the election is truly about Trump, Poilievre is in the awkward position of having to distance himself from a guy many of his own followers follow. If the election is about Trudeau’s record, Carney is in the awkward position of having to distance himself from an unpopular government he advised – or to somehow defend an unpopular prime minister many of his own followers followed.
Just an observation, but the two leaders could afford to move in different emotional directions. Carney’s subdued cadence can suck oxygen from a room, while Poilievre’s fiery broken’ism can be gaseous in that same room. Carney has to find an invigorating key to simplify his message and Poilievre has to find one in clearer tune with resurgent national pride that sheds those three-word slogans (“Boots Not Suits” being the latest groaner).
Neither can be a small man in such big times.
As for the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh, the best he can do is as a junior partner if there is another minority government. The party trendline is disastrous, so he may not even get that opportunity; propping a government could be the preserve of the Bloc Québécois.
The British Columbian political landscape shifted with the country’s in 2022 through to 2024, to the point where only Sukh Dhaliwal in Surrey-Newton seemed the only safe bet among the 15 Liberal seats earned in 2021. Suddenly, though, Liberal candidacies are hot jobs.
Campaigns always matter, so let’s agree that the recent flip in the polls could prove to be a flop by April 28. All it takes to derail is misspeaking when tired, mishandling when an important issue confronts, or misreading when the electorate is saying something you don’t hear in time. We will know soon enough who best drove around those potholes, the one always in business with no political experience or the one always in politics with no business experience. My money is on the voters.
Kirk LaPointe is a Glacier Media columnist with an extensive background in journalism. He is vice-president in the office of the chair at Fulmer and Company
