In January of this year, the Conservative Party in Canada headed by Pierre Poilievre was crushing the Liberal Party headed by Justin Trudeau in the polls. Trudeau had run the country for the past 9 years, and his father, Pierre Trudeau, had served two terms in the role of prime minister in the 1970s and 80s. Generally, most people were upset with the direction that Trudeau and the liberal party were taking Canada, and the Conservatives were set to sweep with an easy victory.
In Poilievre’s campaign, the main rallying cry was “Canada is broken.” Insinuating that Trudeau had messed everything up. Think about that message, about how Canada is broken, It’s time to change something, and Everything is bad. In addition, one of his main campaign promises was his commitment to “axing the tax” or removing the carbon tax in Canada that makes gas more expensive. It’s a climate change initiative, and cutting it was a huge pillar of his platform.
In January this messaging was working incredibly. Trudeau was literally polling so badly people were like calling for him to step down and resign because he was dragging his whole party down.
However, a couple key things happened that shifted this election, in seismic proportions, and resulted in the Mark Carney liberal victory. First, in a pretty abrupt yet keenly courageous move, Trudeau actually did step down. He was replaced with Mark Carney, who despite little runway to lead a campaign and being new to politics, was a pretty astute politician. He was well spoken, good diplomatically, and channeled a sort of Canadian patriotism that appealed to many.
In addition, his first act—to kill the carbon tax—was very strategic on its own. It basically neutralized one of the key platforms of the Conservatives party. Still though, despite Trudeau being gone and the tax having been axed, Poilievre and the conservatives still led the polls by a significant margin.
But then, Donald Trump happened. He basically tipped the scales of this election towards the party that despises him the most. Turns out constantly being threatened with annexation was hugely unpopular with Canadians, and Mark Carney, the more nationalist pro-canadian candidate gained massive traction. You really couldn’t make this up. Immediately after Trudeau resigned Trump literally said, “I called him governor Trudeau because they should be the 51st state.” and that “the people of Canada like it.” He could not have been more wrong.
Carney was seen as the anti-Trump, a guy willing to stand firm and tough against him. Carney’s background in central banking definitely helped him on this, as he really knew what he was doing. I really liked when one of the first things he told Trump was, “If you keep pushing me on this, Canada’s going to sell all of its US debt.” If he did that, borrowing costs in America would skyrocket. It made Trump stand down in a way that must have felt incredibly satisfying for the Canadian people, and he really handled the situation well.
So now we arrive a few days ago where the elections happened, and Carney in fact won! In fact, Pierre Poilievre didn’t just lose this election, he lost his own seat in his district. It was a crazy outcome in a crazy election. I honestly think it’s insane the way that things move nowadays. Like the news cycle comes and goes so fast, and peoples minds have been changing so rapidly. It’s both nauseating and inspiring to see change occur like this.
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