Most Americans are familiar with Canada, a country to America’s north that loves hockey, maple syrup and mispronouncing the word “about.”
But by and large, they don’t pay much attention to our Northern neighbor and certainly not its politics. But, in the era of Trump 2.0, what’s up is down, left is right, and as Darrell Bricker, the Global CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs and a prominent Canadian political analyst, joked to me, “Americans are actually paying attention to Canadian politics … which is weird.”
Then again, at no point in recent memory have U.S. actions played such a decisive role in roiling Canadian politics. Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, the president has transformed the upcoming Canadian elections into a referendum on which Canadian leader is most effective at standing up to America’s bully-in-chief — and, more decisively, on the future of the U.S.-Canadian relationship.
A few months ago, the outlines of Canada’s next election, which must be held by next October but could come as soon as April, were pretty straightforward: The incumbent Liberal Party, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, would get walloped.
The credit or blame (depending on one’s politics) for the narrowing polls doesn’t lie entirely with Trump.
The opposition Conservative Party, which hasn’t won a national election in nearly 15 years, led in the polls by as much as 25 points. Considering that most recent Canadian elections have been relatively close, this was a shockingly large margin. But in the last few weeks, polls show a dramatic shift, with several surveys showing the two parties neck-and-neck. According to Bricker, he’s never seen as dramatic a shift in political fortunes in Canadian political history.
The credit or blame (depending on one’s politics) for the narrowing polls doesn’t lie entirely with Trump. The Conservatives’ early advantage had little to do with the United States and nearly everything to do with public antipathy toward Trudeau.
The son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the current prime minister entered office in 2015 on a wave of public acclaim. But the younger Trudeau has been on a downward spiral for much of his nearly 10-year tenure as prime minister. According to Bricker, Canadians see Trudeau as “insincere and “ineffective,” with a tendency for drama and arrogance. To make matters worse, says Bricker, the “things Justin Trudeau seems to care about are not the things that the public really care about.”
In January, Trudeau announced that he would be stepping down as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party. That decision immediately boosted Liberals in the polls, particularly as some anti-Trudeau voters, who had gravitated to smaller parties like the more liberal New Democrat Party, returned to the Liberal fold. But even with Trudeau heading to the exits, the Conservatives and their leader, Pierre Poilievre, still had a clear lead.
Then came the second whammy — what Andrew Coyne, a columnist at The Globe and Mail, calls “the whole Trump thing.” What began with the imposition and then near-immediate cancellation of tariffs in January, and escalated with the president deriding Canada as the “51st state” reached a crescendo this week with yet another trade war. The result, says Brinker, is that Canadians are “afraid, perplexed … and pretty p----- off.”
“There is no space anywhere in the country,” says Coyne, “for anyone who is not ‘Elbows Up’” to the Americans. (“Elbows up,” as you may have guessed, is a hockey term that means keeping your elbows out to protect yourself … or fight back.)
Both agree an election that a few months ago looked like a referendum on the Liberals’ decade in power has been flipped on its head. Now Canadians are looking for a prime minister who can both stand up to Trump and deal with his impulsiveness. The problem for the Conservatives — and one reason for their dramatic polling decline — is that Canadians don’t seem to be sold on Poilievre as that leader.
Canada’s fight with Trump is about more than just the personality of the country’s next leader.
Though a conservative, Poilievre doesn’t easily fit into the MAGA mold. Like Trump he demonizes the media, plays the populist card and occasionally dabbles in conspiratorial rhetoric. But there’s a limit to his rhetoric. He’s “borrowed the nutty stuff from Trump and MAGA,” says Coyne, “but not the nastiness.”
Reflecting Canadian public sentiment, Poilievre has pushed back on any potential guilt by association by attacking Trump even more forcefully than the Liberals. Indeed, Trump did the Tory leader a favor last week when he complained about Poilievre’s comments about him and said he was “not a MAGA guy.”
Poilievre’s problem, however, is not necessarily an association with MAGA and Trump. It’s that he has a reputation as being more of a political bruiser than a statesman. He’s “been an effective critic,” says Coyne, “but it’s not clear he’s graduated from that.” He “comes across as a bit callow,” and with Trump’s onslaught, that is “more a liability than an asset at this point.”
According to Semra Sevi, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, Poilievre had initially planned to base his campaign around opposing Trudeau and an unpopular carbon tax that Liberals have promised to jettison. “But now that both are no longer central issues, he has struggled to adjust his message.” Poilievre’s continued attacks against the Liberals “no longer resonates as effectively with voters,” Sevi said.
Compounding the challenge for Poilievre is Trudeau’s most likely replacement as head of the Liberal Party, Mark Carney. Carney is an unusual figure in Canadian politics because he’s never before sought or held elected office. However, he has served as governor of the Bank of Canada and helped the country navigate the 2008 financial crisis, and he was also governor of the Bank of England during Brexit. With Canadians looking for a grown-up who can deal with Trump, the urbane and seemingly unflappable Carney seems to more than foot the bill. Coyne notes that when Carney is mentioned as the head of the Liberals, the party actually polls better than when he goes unmentioned.
But Canada’s fight with Trump is about more than just the personality of the country’s next leader. As it becomes increasingly clear that Trump isn’t joking about wanting to turn Canada into the 51st state, Canadians are asking: Has their country hitched its wagon too closely to the United States?
There have been hiccups in the U.S.-Canada bilateral relationship before, but rarely on this scale and never in recent memory.
Before Jan. 20, 2025, that question was unheard of. But Canadians, says Bricker, are starting to wonder: “Why are we so dependent on the United States? Why is our military in disrepair? Why have we not diversified our partners?” Last month, for example, Poilievre held a “Canada First” rally in Ottawa and laid out a plan for lessening reliance on the United States. According to Sevi, “Canadians, regardless of political affiliation, seem more unified than ever in their stance on the U.S.-Canada relationship.”
Even if Trump should exit the White House in four years with minimal additional damage done (which seems highly unlikely), what guarantee does Canada have that a post-Trump American president won’t act the same way? As Coyne put it, “If Americans are going to elect these lunatics,” then Canada needs to be prepared.
There have been hiccups in the U.S.-Canada bilateral relationship before, but rarely on this scale and never in recent memory. Canadians are united in their anger at the Trump administration and uncertain about the path forward with a neighbor that appears mercurial, unbalanced and untrustworthy. Though undoubtedly not his intention, Trump’s anti-Canadian tantrums have raised tough questions in Canada. Unfortunately for Americans, the main one is how much should Canada distance itself from the United States.