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Biden and Trudeau: A political eclipse?
Why are Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau getting so badly eclipsed by the great totality of critics? Can good policies seize back the agenda of a lagging campaign?
President Biden is busy touting his positive economic record but is baffled when it gets eclipsed by issues like his age. He rightly touts creating 300,000 new jobs in March and dropping the unemployment rate to 3.8%, but the headlines still say he looks like a guy who might as well have watched a solar eclipse alongside Moses.
Want to brag about the bullish stock market? Biden could, but that’s overshadowed by news this week about stubbornly high prices on gas, rent, and groceries. Want to shed some light on an economic recovery? Nice try. Word that the Fed may delay rate cuts clouds it over. How about projecting US strength in the world and containing a wider war with Iran, which the US has been doing? That’s undermined by the Hamas-Israel war and the casualties in Gaza that the US appears to have little influence over.
Meanwhile, every day Donald Trump does something so astronomically weird – selling golden shoes or hawking mash-up Constitution-Bibles – that all political telescopes end up turning his way first. So all that good economic result and that big fundraising advantage, so far, has not done much for Biden.
In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is also having trouble staying unblocked. After eight long years in office, you now need to consult with Stephen Hawking on black holes to figure out if any light can escape from the event horizon of the Liberal campaign. This morning,Abacus Data released a poll showing the Conservative Party is 20 points ahead of the Liberals, the highest ever.
That kind of polling eulogy is why Mr. Trudeau is hemorrhaging leaks about his upcoming April 16 federal budget in order to recapture the penumbra of popularity he had when he was first elected. Can these new shiny programs do the trick?
- On April 1 came the CA$1 billion national school food program to ensure over 400,000 kids get school meals annually over the next five years.
- Then came the new national defense policy, “Our North, Strong and Free,” which focuses on Arctic and cyber security, increasing spending by CA$8.1 billion over the next five years, which will push Canada’s spending up to 1.76% of GDP. It’s not quite at the NATO prenup agreement of 2%, but closer.
- There is another CA$1.5 billion for a new Canada Rental Protection Fund to spur more affordable housing and rental units and then, boom, another $600 million in loans and funds to help new owners and renters.
- Oh yes, and CA$2.4 billion for the AI industry to make sure Canada doesn’t take the Large Language Model hit on the chin.
Has it worked? Have the giant budget leaks reframed the Trudeau government’s political fortunes? And more broadly for any government, can new ideas actually change political fortunes?
So far, the evidence is scant. The Abacus poll actually asked the question, “do budgets move votes?” and used the national school food program as a case study. Turns out, most folks didn’t even know about it yet. “Less than half of Canadians were aware of the program announcement” and worse, “parents with kids aged 3 to 14 years of age were actually less likely to be aware of the announcement (41%) than everyone else.”
What does that tell us? That no one is listening to Trudeau – that he’s being tuned out? Or is it more that the media is so fragmented that it takes more time to sell programs these days? Or, maybe that program got drowned out by the other four or five other announcements that spilled out.
Instead of selling voters on one big, new idea to frame the election, Trudeau has set out a smorgasbord of bureaucratic bonanzas with no central theme. Restaurants that serve buffets rarely get Michelin stars.
But here is where the political eclipse gets really weird: The programs being pitched by the Liberal leader … are extremely popular, even with people who oppose Trudeau.
“68% of current Conservative supporters think [the national school food program] is a good or acceptable idea,” according to the Abacus poll. And even stranger, “2 in 3 of those who have a very negative impression of Justin Trudeau think it's a good idea.”
That means even if you have ideas people really like, sometimes it will not change voter intention. “It is like the Prime Minister is a shepherd with no flock,” Abacus CEO David Coletto told me. Biden has the same issue. Even though the economic numbers are good, the narrative frame of negativity is hard to shatter.
That doesn’t mean that opposition leaders – Pierre Poilievre or Donald Trump – have a lock on winning. There is lots of time ahead, and campaigns matter. Trump will have to do more than be a vindictive doomsayer campaigning as the Count of Counterfactuals (“none of these terrible events would have happened if I were President!!!,”he says of inflation and the war in Ukraine, claims which are, of course unprovable), and Poilievre might have to get off Mean Street and move to Main Street. But at least people are listening to them.
Politicians think if people look directly at their records, they will see something truly beautiful. But it turns out that direct scrutiny often blinds the electorate to their message, and voters either turn away or grab a set of glasses the opposition conveniently gives them in order to change their view.
And that’s why a political eclipse is so fascinating: When even the best policies, the ones people really like, no longer illuminate the way, it’s hard to know which way to look.
– Evan Solomon, Publisher
Canada's Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre speaks during a Question Period in the House of Commons on Feb. 14, 2024.
Poilievre tries to bring down the government
It’s political stunt season in Ottawa. It may be a long one, too, as the country counts down the days to the next federal election, due by fall 2025. On Wednesday, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre issued a no-confidence motion over the government’s planned carbon tax increase.
The motion is expected to fail – it never stood a chance. The debate began this afternoon, but the Liberals aren't going to torpedo their own government, and their New Democratic Party partners aren’t keen to send voters to the polls. But the motion isn't about inducing an election; it's about preparing for one.
Poilievre is trying to frame the next election as a contest about affordability. He’s painting the Liberals and New Democrats as big government tax-and-spend robbers reaching deep into the pockets of a tapped-out population that simply can’t stand another (modest) tax increase. He’s even calling it “a carbon tax election.”
The carbon levy is set to rise 23%, which accounts for roughly 3 cents more per liter at the pumps. Poilievre will hammer this message in the months to come and won’t let voters forget who voted to keep the government afloat whenever they do head to the polls.
Dem bias in Ottawa has Trudeau targeting Trump
The most intense debate in the Canadian House of Commons of late has been about a humdrum trade deal update between Canada and Ukraine. It is being disputed by the opposition Conservatives because it contains reference to a carbon tax.
Since Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has made “axing the tax” in Canada his number one priority, he has removed his party’s support from the deal, even though Ukraine has had a carbon tax since 2011.
But the governing Liberals say they detect an ulterior motive: the rise of right-wing, MAGA-style conservatism in Canada that has undermined the Conservative Party’s support for Ukraine.
Trudeau’s camp takes aim at MAGA bull's-eye
The Liberals ran an online ad on Monday, ahead of a Canada-Ukraine free trade deal vote in the House, that featured a photo of Justin Trudeau shaking hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while claiming Poilievre’s party is “importing far-right, American-style politics and refusing to stand with our ally in their time of need.”
Conservatives say they support Ukraine and have just called on Ottawa to send surplus weapons – specifically 83,000 CRV7 rockets slated for disposal – to Kyiv. But the Liberals need to disrupt Poilievre’s momentum and seem convinced that comparing him to Donald Trump might do it.
After the former president won the New Hampshire primary in January, the Liberals made a direct comparison between the two men in an online ad, which said that Trump was one step closer to the White House and that Poilievre was ripping a page from his playbook. The ad noted that both men referenced “corrupt media,” their countries being “broken” and used the slogan “bring it home.”
Trump’s eye-for-an-eye approach
This is a dangerous game, given Trump is ahead in most polls and is an Old Testament-style politician, more inclined to take an eye for an eye than to turn the other cheek.
Why would Trudeau risk baiting the man who could be in the White House this time next year, where he would wield the power to enervate the Canadian economy?
The prime minister knows Trump takes note of every slight and pays everyone back with interest. After the G7 meeting in Charlevoix, Quebec, in 2018, Trudeau gave a closing press conference in which he said Canada would not be pushed around in trade negotiations by the US. According to Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, in his book “The Room Where It Happened,” the president raged against Trudeau, calling the prime minister a “behind your back guy” and ordering his aides to bad mouth Trudeau on the Sunday talk shows.
But Trudeau’s Liberals are trailing the Conservatives by up to 16 percentage points in every public opinion poll, and this tactic may work.
An Abacus data poll from Jan. 28 suggested there is some evidence to suggest that associating Poilievre and Trump correlates with voting intentions, with those who feel that the two men are different more likely to vote Conservative. Tying the two men together in a pejorative fashion is good for the electoral fortunes of the Liberal Party, so the thinking seems to go.
That remains to be seen. Attacking a political rival is always a challenge when the target is held in more esteem than the source of the attack, which is the case here, according to another Abacus poll that found Poilievre much more liked than Trudeau.
Canada’s former man in Washington says to hold fire
The risk is amplified in that the Canadian public may well see through such a transparent tactic and decide that Trudeau is putting his party’s interests ahead of the country’s.
That was the warning issued at the weekend by David MacNaughton, whom Trudeau once appointed as Canada’s ambassador in Washington. He told the Toronto Star that Trudeau is taking a risk by taking indirect shots at Trump.
Doing so will make it harder to fight Trump’s promised 10% tariffs on US imports if he comes to power, he said.
“We used to be seen by the Americans as a trusted friend, ally, and partner, and right now, I don’t think that feeling is as strong as it used to be,” he said.
That MacNaughton has been forced to say this in public suggests he is being ignored in private.
Trudeau revives Team Canada
Trudeau has revived the Team Canada approach to relations with the US that served his government well during the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement that yielded the U.S.-Mexico-Canada deal in 2018.
The new effort will be led by Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s current ambassador in Washington, Francois-Philippe Champagne, the industry minister, and Mary Ng, the trade minister (notably not Mélanie Joly, the foreign minister, or Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister who fell foul of Trump during the USMCA negotiations. “We don’t like their representative,” Trump said at the time).
Municipal mayors, provincial politicians, and business leaders will all be urged to reach out to their contacts to sell the message that the two economies are more integrated than ever. Trade statistics based on the first three years of the new USMCA show that total US trade with Canada and Mexico totaled $1.78 trillion in 2022, a 27% increase over 2019 levels.
When not criticizing “ideologically driven MAGA Conservatives” in Parliament, Trudeau has tried to sound civil.
But as professional diplomats who have worked with Republicans in the US point out, “no amount of Team Canada can overcome those ill-advised MAGA statements.”
Libs and GOP on different planets
Another problem is that the two are on different political planets.
The Liberal government is not keen on engaging with Republican politicians and officials, in part because of an aversion that dates back to the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the US Capitol.
The lack of readiness evokes memories of November 2016, when Trump was elected and the Canadian government was caught completely off-guard. The professional bureaucrats who are meant to advise governments had provided no contingency plan for a Trump administration and Trudeau had even invited the sitting Democratic vice president, Joe Biden, to Ottawa for a state dinner the following month. “They were so excited at the prospect of Hillary (Clinton), even better than Obama because she was a woman. They couldn’t wait for the transition,” said one person involved in the planning process. After Trump was elected, the Canadian government couldn’t even reach him to arrange a congratulatory call.
Louise Blais, a former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations, was consul general in the southeast US at the time – MAGA land – and had built up an array of contacts among Republicans that proved invaluable. Among other things, she secured a phone number for the president-elect.
As she wrote in the Globe and Mail last weekend, even the most conservative Republicans are friendly towards Canada, realizing the relationship is a net positive for them. But they value a rapport built up over the years, not arranged in a panic, and they cherish mutual respect.
Blais recalled how former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told her in 2016 that Republicans were hearing what Canada was saying about then-candidate Trump. “Be careful because you are picking sides,” he said.
Trade deal no protection against Trump’s tariffs
The long-standing Democratic bias at the official level is a luxury Canada can ill afford. Ottawa has a free-trade agreement with the US, but if the new president wants to impose a double-digit tariff on everything that crosses into America, Canada would be dragged into an expensive, retaliatory trade war.
Veteran Conservative MP Randy Hoback wrote on his Substack that the Canada-U.S. relationship is too critical to be jeopardized by domestic political concerns. “Trudeau’s actions are hazardous to our economy and national security,” he said.
Trudeau’s current emissaries don’t speak the same language as Trump’s party. A real Team Canada needs to include some people, like Hoback, who can speak Republican.
Tucker Carlson, Liberator?
Tucker Carlson visited Canada this week to “liberate” it from … from what exactly?
Well, that’s what thousands of people – including the premier of Alberta – came to Calgary and Edmonton to hear in packed arenas.
Tucker’s two-day liberation tour from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “authoritarian dictatorship” is timed perfectly around two political pieces of populist kindling: Trump’s march to victory in the US presidential primaries and a Canadian judge’s ruling that the Liberal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act during the Trucker pandemic protest was “unreasonable” and unconstitutional.
It all sent a message: The populist forces are gathering and ready to take down Trudeau (and Biden) and save Canada from “disgusting decline.”
Here are the things destroying Canada, according to Liberator Carlson: mass immigration, medical assistance in dying (“genocide”), legalized pot, transgender people, the woke folks, the media, big tech, a “metrosexual” prime minister, anti-Christian groups, solar panels … and then, the great biggie, the authoritarian state itself, which exposed itself during the pandemic. “This is a destruction of you and your culture and your beliefs and your children and your future,” Tucker breathlessly summarized.
Pause for a moment on that sentence, because in it lies, perhaps, the most challenging dynamic facing democracies worldwide: hate disguised as anger. The stark casting of politics as a personal, apocalyptic battle over the imminent destruction of … everything. Your culture. Your beliefs. Your children. Your future.
In Tucker’s End-of-Days casting, this is not a mere election cycle, a debate of ideas, or even a culture war. It is a war. Period. Mao Zedong once said “politics is war without bloodshed,” but as the rhetoric keeps getting hotter and political opponents are increasingly viewed as personal enemies, the lines between politics and war are dangerously blurred. And it raises the question, how to respond to this?
The first thing to establish is that a fierce debate of ideas is the core of democracy. Freely disagreeing with others is the whole shemozzle here, so protecting and defending the right of people to say things you disagree with (outside of hate speech, etc.) is foundational. Disagreement doesn’t make someone the enemy; it makes them a partner in democracy. That’s why the arrest of a commentator from Rebel News as he chased down a Canadian minister was fundamentally wrong. And why having Carlson come to Canada is perfectly normal. It may have a political impact, but it was not and should not be banned. Questioning power and protecting speech is core democratic stuff.
It's also why debates and court cases over, say, the government’s use of the Emergencies Act in Canada are critical.
But contrary to Carlson’s distorted mirror, this happens all the time. That’s why willfully twisting facts, playing footsie with hate speech – Carlson’s stock in trade as he profits from paranoia – needs an equally robust response.
For example, the Emergencies Act is a controversial tool, but the fact is, it was heavily scrutinized when invoked. There was a vote in Parliament, a built-in sunset clause (it was only in use for nine days), an inquiry headed by Justice Paul Rouleau (whose scope included access to confidential cabinet documents), and court cases from civil liberties groups … who just won!
Hardly the hallmarks of a dictatorship. It is the robust debate about a government’s use and overuse of powers, which is ongoing in any democracy. Torquing this stuff as some kind of fascistic conspiracy erodes the hard work it took to build these check and balance systems in the first place.
On one hand, the media and politicians have to be extra transparent, open, and fair, and they should take criticism about their own biases and assumptions. On the other hand, they can’t be scared to check facts, call bullshit, and avoid promoting hate.
For example, as Carlson raged about the government’s overreach on COVID – “hey Canada forcing people to take an untested medicine is not a good idea” – he left out the fact that in January, February, and March of 2020, HE was one of the leading voices calling on the government to do MORE. “People you know will get sick …Some may die. This is real,” he said. In March, he actually visited Donald Trump in the White House to urge him to take stronger action. “Anybody who imagined that this was just media hype turned out to be wrong,” Carlson said. “Feb. 3 is the day that it was confirmed to me by a US government official that this was a huge problem and that a lot of people could die. That’s when I learned it. And that’s the night we went on the air and said, "Wow this is something you really need to worry about.’”
Did Tucker mention any of this during his liberation tour? Is calling out his own call for action against the dangers of COVID political bias or just fact-checking
the revisionist history he’s peddling?
I guess this used to be called “standards,” but standards of shame, debate, and humanity have been abolished by the anonymous shield of social media, the political efficacy of disinformation, and the profitability of anger. Both the far right and the far left, among other culprits, bear responsibility. This is not bothsidesism. The fringes of both political spectrums have destroyed the middle ground on a host of issues – the pandemic, Ukraine, Israel-Gaza – and made reasonable dialogue a helluva lot harder.
Where does it end up?
Look, people are scared about where we are headed, but let’s not arm up.
Maybe it’s just good to remind folks that in the US and Canada, though there are real and deep problems, we have it pretty darn good next to, well, almost anywhere.
In the US this week, inflation was 3%, wage growth was 3% and employment was 3%. Look around the world. That’s not bad.
It sure as heck doesn’t look like the apocalypse or like your children will be destroyed.
Wars require liberators. Democracies require candidates.
FILE PHOTO: People walk on the grounds of the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario, Canada September 9, 2020. Picture taken September 9, 2020.
Ottawa caps visas for foreign students
The Trudeau government is shutting the door to hundreds of thousands of foreign students. This week, Ottawa moved to reduce the number of undergraduate international student visas for 2025 to just 360,000, a 35% cut, in an effort to tackle the housing crisis and rein in diploma mills that are profiting off the system.
The reduction is expected to pose serious enrollment problems for some institutions. The schools have already warned that the government’s visa cuts could lead to tuition increases, job losses, and even closures. But Immigration Minister Marc Miller said he had no choice: "We've got two years to actually get the ship in order. It's a bit of a mess, and it's time to rein it in."
International students fall in a jurisdictional gap in Canada between the provinces, which fund and regulate universities and colleges, and the federal government, which issues the visas. As provincial funding has failed to keep pace with post-secondary costs, universities and colleges have kept their bottom lines intact by increasing the enrollment of foreign students, mostly from India and China.
“I’m not the minister of post-secondary education underfunding,” Miller said. “I’m the minister of immigration and clearly in the last decade or so post-secondary institutions in Canada have been underfunded.”
While Miller pointed to systemic issues, the primary impetus seems to be the housing crisis, which has led to a shift in public opinion against immigration. And against Justin Trudeau. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has successfully attacked the prime minister about the housing shortage.
Unlike in the United States, where immigration is at the heart of the national political debate, a cross-partisan consensus around the value of immigration is normal in Canada. So the Liberals moving to rein in student visas lies in stark contrast to a longstanding welcoming approach to immigration.
There may be more to come. Radio-Canada, the French language branch of CBC, reported Thursday that Canada is poised to reimpose a visa requirement on Mexico after more than 25,000 people from that country sought asylum in Canada last year.FILE PHOTO: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes a housing announcement in Ajax, Ontario Canada November 30, 2023.
Judge delivers blow to Trudeau
Did Tucker Carlson and other conservative American critics of Justin Trudeau have a point? Canada’s Federal Court ruled Tuesday that the prime minister’s government violated the constitutional rights of anti-mandate protesters by cracking down on the convoy protests that paralyzed Ottawa in 2022.
By invoking the Emergencies Act, the government forced reluctant tow-truck drivers to tow the trucks that had paralyzed Ottawa for a month. The act also allowed the government to freeze bank accounts belonging to protesters and shut down much of downtown Ottawa while police cleared the streets.
On Tuesday, Justice Richard Mosley ruled for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which argued that invoking the Emergencies Act led to the violation of the rights of Canadians. It “led to infringement of Charter rights,” he wrote.
The ruling came as Trudeau and his cabinet were finishing a retreat in Montreal ahead of the winter Parliamentary session, throwing the government off balance as it attempted a much-needed communications reset. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland defended the action and said the government would appeal the ruling.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, meanwhile, welcomed the ruling, saying that Trudeau “caused the crisis by dividing people. Then he violated Charter rights to illegally suppress citizens. As PM, I will unite our country for freedom.”
When Trudeau ordered the streets cleared, some American conservatives, including Carlson, argued that the prime minister was being tyrannical. Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert even called for Canada “to be liberated.”
On Wednesday, a day after the ruling, Carlson visited Alberta for two events with conservative Premier Danielle Smith. But before he arrived, he called Trudeau’s office to warn them he was coming to “liberate Canada.” At the event, he pressed Smith to intervene in the case of four convoy protesters charged with conspiring to murder RCMP officers. She expressed regret about the limits of her office.
Canadian Liberals cry “Trump”… at their peril
Less than a year out from the US presidential election, concerns about Donald Trump’s potential return to the White House now include warnings of a possible slip into dictatorship. Last weekend, in the Washington Post, Robert Kagan wrote of a “clear path to dictatorship in the United States,” one that is “getting shorter every day.” Liz Cheney, a former Republican member of Congress and potential 2024 third-party presidential contender, echoed the concern, warning that the country is “sleepwalking into dictatorship.”
Meanwhile, north of the border, a desperate Liberal Party and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, way down in the polls, are doing their best to paint their main rival, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, as a MAGA North incarnation of Trump, with everything that implies. As Politico reports, Trump’s influence over Canadian politics is significant, a potential “wild card” for Trudeau and a force that will shape the country’s next election, which is due by the fall of 2025 – but could come sooner.
MAGA-fying Poilievre
The Liberals have been working to tie Poilievre to Trump for months. They tested online attack ads ahead of an anti-Poilievre campaign back in November, and Trudeau claimed Poilievre was following Trump’s lead in abandoning Ukraine.
The logic of a Trump-Poilievre connection is simple. Trump is viewed poorly in Canada. The Liberals are drawing on Poilievre’s conservatism and faux-populism to cast him as a norm-busting, phony anti-elite politician hellbent on waging culture wars, demeaning the press, and attacking the country’s core institutions, such as the Bank of Canada and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
So far, efforts to MAGA-fy Poilievre appear to be failing. The Conservatives are comfortably ahead in the polls by double digits, including two recent surveys – one by Abacus Data and one by Nanos Research – that found them ahead by nearly 20 points.
The Liberals are more than eight years into government and showing their age. And while they managed to come back from polling deficits ahead of the 2019 and 2021 elections – and retain government, despite winning fewer votes than the Conservatives – so far Poilievre has proven a stronger leader than either Andrew Scheer or Erin O’Toole, who led the Conservatives in the last two outings. Poilievre has better control over his caucus than his predecessors. His messaging and focus is on economic issues, particularly the housing crisis, and that resonates with Canadians.
Trump vs. Trudeau, Take Two
Americans worried about Trump 2.0 believe they are staring down a real threat to the republic. As CNN’s Stephen Collinson wrote earlier this week, Trump’s “increasingly unapologetic anti-democratic rhetoric” seems likely to foreshadow a threat to the country’s constitution and its checks and balances. There are fears he will stack appointments with cronies and ignore limits on presidential powers while finding willing accomplices in Congress and state legislatures. Will the man who refused to accept the 2020 election outcome accept 2024’s results if he loses? And, if he wins, will he leave quietly in 2028?
If Trump wins, the US might not be the only country in trouble. Trudeau may face Trump’s wrath – especially after being used as a punching bag ahead of the Canadian election. In 2020, John Bolton detailed how much Trump dislikes Trudeau, an account that rings true in light of how rocky the relationship between the two leaders was. Those years included awkward bilateral meetings, summit showdowns, rebukes over policy decisions including Canadian military spending, and an acrimonious renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. There is little chance the relationship will improve if Trump wins in 2024, and voters are taking note.
An October poll by Abacus Data found that Canadians believe Poilievre would better manage Trump than Trudeau – 37% to 28%. The polling firm’s CEO David Colletto explained to the Toronto Star that a Trump win would not necessarily boost Trudeau’s reelection chances, as Liberals seem to believe. He noted that respondents see Poilievre and Trump as sharing certain conservative affinities and perspectives. In this way, at least, Poilievre’s alleged proximity to Trump for them is seen as a potential asset.
What’s next?
Americans must consider what a Trump 2024 win would mean. Graeme Thompson, senior analyst at Eurasia Group, warns that observers may be discounting the possibility of it hurting US democracy.
“I think people are underestimating – as they did in 2016 – the odds that Trump wins the next election and the potentially dire consequences for the US republic that could entail,” he says. “The campaign itself is going to be brutal, and there’s a good chance that the losing side rejects the outcome, regardless of who wins.”
Canada must also prepare for a Trump win, and the Liberals will be doing so while trying to use the former president and the MAGA crowd as an anti-Poilievre cudgel – a strategy that may not even work. While Thompson reminds us that Canada is great at managing its relationship with its southern neighbor, “it will need that skill more than ever if it faces a second Trump presidency.” Moreover, the governing party might wish to rethink its strategy.
“If the Liberals are still in power,” he says “they would be smart to de-personalize the relationship as much as possible – that’s to say, make it transactional and interest-based, especially given the bad vibes between Trump and Trudeau.”
Unless something changes, given the current polling data, the Liberals, despite their best efforts, might not be around long enough to take that advice.
Canada's Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre speaks in the House of Commons.
Poilievre is polling well despite crying "terror"
The political exchange was sparked when a 56-year-old New York man set out to attend a Kiss concert, but instead ended up driving his Bentley at high speed into a barrier at the border crossing, going airborne and exploding on impact, killing him and his wife.
Fox News was quick to report that it was believed to be a terrorist attack, and Republicans were quick to link it to Biden’s border policies. On Twitter, Ted Cruz called it a terrorist attack, as did GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who has called for a wall along the northern border.
In Canada’s House of Commons, before the facts were established, Poilievre asked about reports that the incident was linked to terrorism. After it became clear it had nothing to do with terrorists, the Liberals accused him of jumping to conclusions. When he was asked about it, Poilievre berated the reporter who posed the question, which commentators, including this writer, thought went too far. He also came under harsh criticism for voting against a Canada-Ukraine free trade deal and delivering a misleading explanation for the vote.
Both incidents gave Liberals the opportunity to attack him as dishonest, mean, and a Trumpy northerner, perhaps hoping for make a comeback in the polls. So far, that has not happened. The most recent poll from Nanos shows the Liberals so far behind that they are tied with the NDP, which could put pressure on the smaller party to force an early election. Seat projections show that the NDP would pick up seats if there was an election today, but that’s no guarantee since their voters might not like to see the NDP bring down Trudeau, opening a path to a Poilievre government.