How Trump’s threats have rekindled Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in Canada

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

This result does not seem so certain now.

In the wake of the threats of US President Donald Trump against Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s liberal party has increased in the polls, reducing the two-digit management that their conservative rivals have regularly owned since mid-2023.

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

Trump’s rhetoric “pushed back all the other questions” which were in the lead for the Canadians before its inauguration on January 20, notes Luc Turgeon, professor of political science at the University of Ottawa.

He even managed to revive the trudeau formerly deeply unpopular, whose approval rating has climbed 12 points since December. The Prime Minister, of course, will not be in power any longer, after having announced his resignation at the start of the year.

On Sunday, his liberals will declare the results of the leadership competition to determine who takes over a party that leads a precarious minority government. The new chief will have two immediate decisions to make: how to respond to Trump’s threats and when to call a general election. The answer to the first dilemma will surely influence the second.

A federal election must take place no later than October 20, but could be called this week.

The polls indicate that many Canadians still want a change at the top. But to what this change would look like – a liberal government under a new leadership, or a complete passage to the Conservatives – is now the assumption of anyone, explains Greg Lyle, president of the innovative research group based in Toronto, who probed the Canadians on their changing attitudes.

“So far, it was an eruption for the conservatives,” he told the BBC.

Indeed, the right central part led by Pierre Hairy, has been effective in his messages on issues that have occupied the Canadian psyche in recent years: increased cost of living, inabordability, crime and a tense health system.

Hairyre successfully linked these societal problems to what he labeled the “disastrous” policies of Trudeau and promised a return to the “common sense policy”.

But with the resignation of Trudeau and Trump’s threats to Canada’s economic security and even its sovereignty, this messaging has become expired, said Mr. Lyle. Her survey suggests that the majority of the country is now afraid of Trump’s presidency and the impact she will have on Canada.

The 25% prices of Trump on all Canadian imports in the United States, some of which have been interrupted until April 2, could be devastating for the economy of Canada, which sends three quarters of all its products to the United States. Officials predicted up to a million job losses accordingly, and Canada could go to a recession if the goods tax persists.

Trudeau left no doubt how seriously he took the threat to the journalists this week that the reason indicated by Trump of American prices – the flow of fentanyl through the border – was false and unjustified.

“What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy because it will facilitate the task of us,” said the Prime Minister.

“In many ways, this is a fundamental and fundamental question about the survival of the country,” said Professor Turgeon at the BBC. Who is best placed to defend Canada against Trump has therefore become the key question of the next elections.

The conservatives are still ahead in the polls, the last averages suggesting that 40% of voters support them. The fortune of the Liberals, on the other hand, was relaunched, their support climbing to just over 30% – up 10 points compared to January.

The liberals tried to highlight the similarities between the conservative chief and the republican president. During the debate on last week’s leaders, the candidates qualified Hairy as “our small version of Trump here at home” and said that he was trying to “imitate” the American president. An announcement of attack on the Liberal Party Juxtaposed clips of the two using similar sentences Like “Fake News” and “Radical Left”.

However, there are clear differences between the two politicians, in terms of style and substance. And Trump himself minimized the parallels, telling the British magazine the spectator in a recent interview that Hairyvre is “not Magi enough”.

However, the polls suggest a conservative support shift. A recent survey of the Angus Reid national survey indicates that Canadians think that the leader of Liberal leaders Mark Carney is better equipped to meet Trump on prices and trade issues than Hairyvre.

The former central banker for Canada and England praises his experience by dealing with economic crises, including the 2008 financial crash and Brexit.

And the change in political mood forced the conservatives to recalculate their messaging.

If the election is called soon, the campaign will take place at a time when Trump’s threats have inspired fierce patriotism among Canadians. Many are boycott American products In their local grocery stores or even cancel trips to the United States.

Professor Turgeon says that “rallying the flag” has become a key theme of Canadian politics.

The conservatives have moved away from their slogan “Canada Is Broken”, which, according to Mr. Lyle, risked presenting himself as “anti-patriotic”, in “Canada first”.

The conservatives also redirected their attacks to Carney. Before Trump’s prices, they broadcast advertisements saying that he is “like Justin” in order to link him to Trudeau. But in recent weeks, the Conservatives have started to dig into Carney’s loyalty to Canada.

More specifically, they wondered if he had a role in moving the headquarters of Brookfield Asset Management – a Canadian investment company – from Toronto to New York when it was its president.

Carney replied that he had left the company when this decision was made, but the documents of the company reported by the public broadcaster CBC show that the Council approved this decision in October 2024, when Carney was still in Brookfield.

This decision, and the ambiguity by Carney of her involvement with her, was criticized by the editorial committee of the National Journal of Canada The Globe and Mail, which wrote Thursday that Carney was to be transparent with the Canadians.

More broadly, the newspaper wrote: “Each party leader must understand that Canada enters a period of uncertainty of a year.

Given anxiety by Canadians, Mr. Lyle says that any ambiguity concerning Carney’s loyalty to the country could still be damaging to him and the Liberals.

Whenever the elections arrive and whoever wins, one thing is certain: Trump will continue to influence and reshape Canadian politics as he did in the United States.