The federal election is a couple of weeks into the campaign and it's turned out to be nothing like anybody expected.
Prior to Christmas, polls indicated that it was going to be a lock for the Conservative Party to form the next government. Now, I know there's enough evidence to suggest you can't trust polls. The old saying is that the only poll you can trust is the one on election day. But by all estimates, predictions and analyses, the Conservatives had this one in the bag.
Then along came U.S.president Donald Trump. Actually, first, away went former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He stepped down and even before candidate Mark Carney had won the party leadership, the Liberal Party's polling began to swing upwards. The Conservatives were focused on Trudeau (who had provided plenty of fodder) and losing him pulled a big rug out from under them. Meanwhile, Carney got in, got right to work and displayed a willingness to stand up to Trump and his tariff fetish and 51st state delusions and Canadians are eating it up and asking for more.
After the humiliation of Trump's 51st state rhetoric and the underlying fear of actual annexation by the United States by either economic absorption or actual military invasion, Canadians were happy to see some push back.
Was the U.S. really ever going to annex Canada? Probably not. For one thing, the U.S. has already annexed Canada economically. Seventy-five per cent of our exports go to the United States. What more would they want? Trump's verbal imperialism was completely unnecessary. A more compliant ally of the U.S. than Canada doesn't exist. What Trump has actually succeeded in doing is turn Canada against the U.S. and sent us scurrying for a semblance of economic and even military independence.
Canadians felt it was good to see someone stand up to Trump. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre uttered some verbal resistance but he and his party are just not seen by many, if not most Canadians, as being against Trump, the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement and the Republican Party, in fact, they're seen by many as the Canadian equivalent. How willing they would be to actually take on Trump is questioned. What's more, people wouldn't be surprised if he worked with Trump. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's urging American conservatives on Breitbart to get Trump to go easy on Poilevre until after the election didn't help matters.
So, the whole Trump mess has completely ensnared the Canadian federal election. The Conservatives' attack plan was gutted by Trudeau's resignation and now it's being smothered by the pillow of Trump's tariffs and annexation talk.
Now the election is, at least partially, a referendum on who is best able to defend Canada from American economic and political imperialism and lead us into a more independent future. Polls seem to be showing voters see Poilievre is more likely to collaborate with Trump than fight him. Hence Carney and the Liberals' political fortunes have been awakened from the dead.
An interesting element of all of this, and relevant to ridings in western Canada, particularly, is the possibility of strategic voting. People are now considering whether a vote for the party most able to stand up to Trump and the U.S. is more important than their usual political point of view. NDP voters face the dilemma of casting their vote for a party not likely to form government, therefore wasting their vote and also allowing the Conservatives to benefit from vote splitting on the centre-left. On the other hand, who is more likely to get elected in the West, the NDP candidate or the Liberal, in ridings where a Liberal hasn't won in decades? So, maybe voting for the Libs is the wasted vote. That is, if you're intention is to keep the Conservatives out.
Not only are the Conservatives losing ground in national polls but the NDP is as well, perhaps even more so. Even some moderate small-c conservatives are perhaps thinking the Liberals, run by a centralist banker who won't roll over for the MAGA movement, may be a more palatable choice than a Trump apologist, real or perceived.
It's all pretty interesting and we'll see how it all plays out.
