“Captain Canada” Carney gains in the Maple Leaf v MAGA election

CANADA IS DUE to vote in a general election on April 28th, two days before Donald Trump’s 100th day in office. Events south of the border have transformed politics north of it. The latest calculations from The Economist’s prediction model give Mark Carney’s Liberal Party an 86% chance of winning the most seats in Parliament. But the quirks of Canada’s constituency system mean that neither side is treating the result as a foregone conclusion and campaigning is fast and furious. On April 23rd the Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre, released its plan to build a “fortress” against the trade war hurting one of the world’s closest economic relationships, with $2.6bn of goods and services crossing the border every day. Meanwhile Mr Carney was frantically pressing the flesh in French-speaking Quebec. Even as they battle it out, the two have converged on similar policies.

On economics, defence, the environment, housing and trade, the proposals of Mr Carney, a former central banker, and of Mr Poilievre, a libertarian career politician, now differ mostly in degree, not in kind. Both men say they will cut taxes on carbon emissions, purchases of newly built homes and the incomes of people on low wages; both promise to reduce bureaucracy and increase housing supply by slashing regulation; both are committed to responding to Mr Trump’s trade assault with Canada’s own tariffs, and to a push for much freer trade among Canada’s provinces.

But the shift of the campaign towards economics has benefited Mr Carney. He frames Mr Trump’s aggression as a national crisis and is reaping rewards for doing so. Although he has been prime minister for less than two months, and is seeking a rare fourth consecutive mandate for his Liberal Party, he has erased the Conservatives’ 25-point lead in the polls, taking a five-point lead nationwide as election day approaches. Due to the vagaries of Canadian political geography, the Liberals’ support is likely to be even higher in the constituencies that will decide the election. That explains our model’s 86% probability of the Liberals taking the most seats. Mr Carney has wasted no time in jettisoning the preachy dogmas of his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, which had polarised Canadians. In a stroke this undermined the Conservatives’ platform, which was defined in opposition to Mr Trudeau and his ilk.

Mr Carney has become “Captain Canada”, the chief Trump-resister. Long before he became leader, the Conservatives had called him “Carbon Tax Carney” for his support of the unpopular levy. Mr Poilievre had built much of his platform on the promise to “axe the tax”. So what was Mr Carney’s first act as prime minister? Eliminating the consumer-facing component of the carbon tax, and replacing its incentivising power with green government spending. (The tax on industrial emitters stays.) It almost looked as if it was his idea in the first place. Research from Abacus Data, a polling firm, shows that Canadians credit Mr Carney with the demise of the carbon levy, rather than Mr Poilievre, by a margin of almost two-to-one.

Platform larceny has not been limited to the carbon tax. The cost of housing had been a dominant concern for Canadians since prices spiked during the pandemic. Six months ago Mr Poilievre proposed the removal of the value-added tax of 5% on the sale of newly built houses, to help first-time buyers. The Trudeau government criticised the tax cut, saying it would benefit the “investor class”. Mr Carney’s Liberals adopted the cut days after he became prime minister.

Mr Trump’s attacks place Mr Poilievre in a tricky position, as he comes across as somewhat Trumpian and had fostered alliances with MAGA types from across the border. Mr Carney has proposed negotiating a new economic and security pact with the United States as a first step towards rebuilding trust. Until then, his Liberal Party is matching 25% tariffs on all vehicles imported from the United States that do not comply with the US-Mexico-Canada agreement on free trade signed by Mr Trump in his first term. Mr Poilievre is having to follow his lead. He says he will leave in place the counter-tariffs, including those that were first imposed by Mr Trudeau, and merely promises a different flavour of spending when it comes to the money raised by Canada’s tariffs on imports from America.

Mr Carney is somewhat less flaky than Mr Trudeau was on defence spending. The Liberal leader has vowed to reach NATO’s spending standard of 2% of GDP by 2030, two years faster than his predecessor said it would be done. Mr Poilievre committed to the same deadline only after Mr Carney did, and after years of prevarication. He says increased defence spending is contingent on making cuts elsewhere.

Look through all this merging policy to find the root of Mr Carney’s success: his ability to appeal to voters who dislike his party, particularly the substantial number who supported smaller left-wing parties at the last election. Abacus Data finds that 38% of voters who supported the left-wing New Democrats in 2021, and 11% of those who supported the Francophone Bloc Québécois, are now backing the Liberals. Canada’s left-wing vote is more united than it has been for 50 years—against Mr Trump and in favour of Mr Carney’s economic credentials. ■