We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
Stephen Maher
Justin Trudeau does not intend to follow his friend Joe Biden into retirement to make way for a more appealing leader before the next election, he told reporters this week, because he is “focused on making sure we’re delivering through that election the kinds of things that Canadians need.”
Most Canadians think he should resign, but instead, Trudeau has rolled up his sleeves and announced policies to tackle the housing crisis — increasing supply and reducing demand — which should eventually help close the gap.
There’s just one small problem. It will take years before things get better, and he is scheduled to go to the polls in 13 months. That may seem unfair since he won’t likely be in office when the issue is resolved, but on the other hand, he is largely responsible for creating the problem.
The trouble started after the pandemic, when the economy was teetering on the brink of a slowdown because of a labor shortage. Employers, business associations, and provincial governments were united in calling for the government to do something before businesses were forced to shut down for want of workers.
Trudeau tried to give them what they wanted: people. His government opened the gates to immigrants on a vast scale, letting in permanent workers, temporary foreign workers, and students, coming up with novel pathways for visa approvals. In they flooded.
Tent cities everywhere
From 2021 to halfway through this year, Canada’s population grew by almost three million people, and fewer than 900,000 homes were built.
In the third quarter of 2022, Canada’s population grew by 362,453, the fastest rate of growth since 1957, during the postwar baby boom. But Canadians are no longer able, as they were in the 1950s, to quickly build thousands of tract houses. Permitting is complex, expensive, and slow. To make things worse, just as housing got scarce, interest rates spiked, which stalled approved projects.
The result is plain in cities across Canada. Tent encampments have sprung up, which, research shows, is a sign that many more people are living in tough circumstances — sleeping in vans, couch surfing, or jammed into overcrowded apartments.
In Halifax, where Trudeau spoke to reporters, politicians are arguing about which parks should be open to tents. The vacancy rate (percentage of unoccupied rental units) has been at 1% for three years. Rent went up 9.5% in 2023. The price of a house doubled in a decade.
Tough on the young
Young people have borne the brunt. When they should be figuring out their lives, they are struggling to make rent. They are not in a good mood. Thirty-six percent of Canadian 18-35-year-olds say they are having a hard time paying their bills on time, according to polling from Abacus Data. Forty-five percent say they have experienced significant to extreme stress because of the housing crisis.
As the crisis got worse, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre gained ground, proposing policies that the Trudeau government ended up implementing. As a result, only 12% of young people think the Liberals have the best solution for the problem, compared with 30% (largely male) for the Conservatives and 24% (largely female) for the left-leaning NDP.
Those voters have tuned out Trudeau, says pollster David Coletto. “He can’t make the arguments that need to be made if you want to counter Poilievre effectively. No one’s going to listen."
Trudeau has put billions into housing funds, pressed municipalities to loosen zoning rules and, this week, announced two big changes. In Halifax, his government announced it would make it harder for Canadian companies to hire temporary foreign workers and that it would make available federal land for affordable housing.
A Canadian Kamala?
The first step ought to reduce the demand for housing, or the rate of growth at any rate, and the second will increase the supply. But neither the supply nor the demand line will bend in an electorally useful way.
“I don’t see the situation being substantially better in the next 12 months,” says Mike Moffatt, an economist who gave a presentation to Trudeau’s cabinet in Halifax.
The Liberals are going to lose unless they convince Trudeau to follow Biden into retirement and find a new leader who can get young voters onside, says Coletto, of Abacus Data.
In the United States, “all of the market research was showing us that there were large segments of young people — women — who despised both options they were offered,” he says. “And the minute you changed the menu and put what people wanted on there, they embraced it. Canada’s no different.”
Canadian Liberals must hope that a Canadian Kamala Harris rides to their rescue, or Poilievre will reap the rewards of the policy that Trudeau is implementing now.Kevin Falcon.
British Columbians were shocked on Wednesday when the leader of the center-right opposition party announced that he would dissolve that party and encourage voters to support the Conservatives to get rid of the NDP government.
Kevin Falcon won the leadership of the B.C. Liberal Party in 2022 and changed the name of the party to B.C. United. Later that year, he expelled legislator John Rustad for expressing skepticism about climate change. Rustad went on to lead the Conservatives, who Falcon is now endorsing.
The announcement, which was carried out on Falcon’s initiative without consultation with his members, came as a shock to the party’s candidates and will make the upcoming election campaign unusual.
British Columbians are to vote on Oct. 19. The governing New Democrats have been leading in the polls, but historically, right-of-center parties win when they are united. Everyone will be watching the polls in the days ahead to see how Falcon’s gambit lands.
Canada's New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh speaks to journalists before Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada February 26, 2024.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievrechallenged NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh on Thursday to withdraw his party’s support for the government of Justin Trudeau to allow for an election in October.
Singh’s left-leaning New Democrats have propped up Trudeau’s government in Parliament since 2022, when they reached a “supply and confidence agreement,” exchanging NDP votes in the House for Liberal action on NDP priorities.
Poilievre has been leading Trudeau in the polls by double digits for almost two years and is expected to beat him in an election tentatively scheduled for 13 months from now.
In a letter to Singh, Poilievre sought to blame him for the rising cost of living: “Canadians can’t afford or even endure another year of this costly coalition. No one voted for you to keep Trudeau in power.”
Singh seems unlikely to take Poilievre up on the offer, which seems calculated to further link Singh and Trudeau in the minds of voters struggling to make ends meet.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, during a briefing conference at National Palace talking about relations with Canada and the US.
Outgoing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has “frozen” his country’s relationship with Canada and the United States after both countries criticized his proposed changes to judicial appointments.
Obrador, who is due to hand power to Claudia Sheinbaum at the end of September, is pushing through a judicial reform that would have 7,000 judges, magistrates, and justices elected by popular vote. The proposal has provoked angry reactions from those who fear it will make the Mexican legal system more susceptible to corruption.
The ambassadors of both Canada and the United States have criticized the proposal, warning that it could have implications for international investors. American and Canadian trade — through the so-called “Three Amigos” USMCA relationship — is crucial to the Mexican economy. Canada and Mexico did $55 billion in trade in 2023, while the United States and Mexico did $798.83 billion.
Obrador, a frequently fiery left-wing populist, told reporters that it is wrong for the ambassadors to interfere in Mexican politics and announced a pause in the relationship with both embassies.
Obrador’s Morena party has a large enough majority in Mexico’s legislatures to implement the necessary constitutional change. His successor has said she supports the move, so it appears likely to happen, whatever Mexico’s two amigos think about it.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pose for a family photo during Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 16, 2023.
Canadian trade officials are anxiously waiting to see how China reacts to Canada’s decision to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the measure during a cabinet retreat in Halifax on Monday. In a briefing in Beijing on Tuesday, a Chinese foreign affairs spokesman said Canada must “correct this wrong decision at once,” or China will respond.
Canada imported CA$2.2 billion worth of electric vehicles last year – mostly Teslas manufactured in China – up from less than $100 million in 2022. Tesla may be able to shift its manufacturing to avoid the tariffs, but Chinese EV manufacturers can’t get around the trade barriers so easily. BYD, one of the biggest brands, sold three million electric vehicles last year, overcoming Tesla as the world’s biggest EV manufacturer. The Chinese appear to be ready to outsell Western competitors, but only if they have access to markets.
Canada, which lacks America’s clout with China, faces greater possible difficulty with Chinese countermeasures but must keep its policy aligned with Washington’s to keep access to the crucial American market for Canadian auto and parts manufacturers. Both Canada and the United States have built an industrial strategy around subsidies for domestic EV manufacturing, but environmentalists point out that this will reduce emission reductions more slowly than just allowing for the import of cheaper Chinese vehicles.
However, the tariffs ought to allow North American manufacturers to compete, protecting jobs, which progressives hope will help maintain political support for reducing emissions.
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Kamala Harris came out of the Democratic National Convention last week with a small lead over Donald Trump, but it is unclear whether it will hold or be enough to prevail in the Electoral College.
Ever since she replaced Joe Biden, Harris has been getting better coverage than Trump, but now that she has announced her vice presidential pick and the convention is over, it may be harder for her to land good news stories and easier for Trump to attract attention. That means a lot is riding on tonight’s big interview on CNN, a sitdown between the outlet’s Dana Bash and Harris and Gov. Tim Walz, which will air at 9 p.m. ET. But there will be even more riding on Harris’ first presidential debate with Trump, scheduled to take place on ABC on Sept. 10, and the wrangling continues over the terms.
Trump has again announced that the rules have been agreed on, but Harris’ team says it wants both candidates’ microphones to be live throughout, as is normally the case. In Trump’s June debate with Biden, the candidates’ mics were muted when the other was speaking. The Harris side says that helped Trump since it prevented him from interjecting. Trump told reporters he’d prefer to have the mics live but that the two sides have already agreed to the terms.
The struggle is crucial. History shows that debates can cause decisive shifts in voters’ intentions. With this election on a knife’s edge, both candidates are battling for even the smallest advantage.
A Canadian flag waves beside McDonalds fast food restaurant in Toronto, May 1, 2014. Canada's foreign worker's program has expanded to lower-skilled jobs, especially at restaurant chains such as McDonald's Corp and Tim Hortons Inc.
Another week, another black eye for Justin Trudeau’s increasingly unpopular immigration policy. This time the punch came from the United Nations, which released a scathing report alleging that Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program is a “breeding ground for contemporary slavery.”
The program — which the Liberals have greatly expanded to fill pandemic-related job vacancies — allows foreigners to work temporarily in Canada in industries like agriculture, fisheries, and food service, often for low wages.
But the UN says the program makes workers vulnerable to abuse, since they can be deported if they are fired. The minister responsible for the program, Marc Miller, has acknowledged the need for reforms.
Immigration has historically not been a hot-button political issue in Canada, where there’s been a nonpartisan consensus about its societal and economic benefits. But the Liberals’ massive expansion of immigrant visas in recent years has contributed to a housing shortage, while economists say the temporary worker programs suppress wages for Canadians. As a result, the pro-immigration consensus has collapsed.Miller has been scrambling to make fixes to the system, but so far the Conservatives are making hay out of a popular demand to slow immigration. The Liberals, meanwhile, may be wary of cutting immigration too swiftly, for fear of the economic fallout and potential blowback from some in ethnic communities they rely on at the ballot box.
Speaking of good news for Kamala Harris, a Cook Political Report swing state poll released Wednesday shows her leading Donald Trump in five of the seven swing states that could decide the election.
Speaking of good news for Kamala Harris, a Cook Political Report swing state poll released Wednesday shows her leading Donald Trump in five of the seven swing states that could decide the election.
Cook, a highly rated pollster, finds Harris up in Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, tied in Georgia, and slightly behind in Nevada. If that holds through Election Day, she will likely win.
The results echo those of last week’s New York Times/Siena College poll, which showed Harris leading in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Both polls reflect the “vibe shift” since President Joe Biden withdrew from the race. Until then, Trump led in the swing states.
The Democrats are riding high … for now. Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, have held large rallies while the Trump campaign has struggled to adjust to its new opponent. The upcoming Democratic National Convention may give Harris the traditional “convention bump” as well.
Still, the election is 80 days away, and the race has been volatile. Harris, who has mostly avoided the press, has benefitted from favorable mainstream media coverage, which may not last.
The coming weeks will give us a better sense of whether the initial outpouring of support for Harris/Walz is a sugar high or a square meal.