Democratic elections follow their own rules and developments. The Canadian Liberals had been way down in the polls during the last days of Prime Minister Trudeau’s term, just for having a massive turn around in the last couple of weeks before the election to nearly secure a majority government for them. Meanwhile, the Conservatives lost what looked like an insurmountable lead in the polls, now forced to watch a possible next era of Liberal dominance. How could this come about? What role did US-president Trump play? And what does this mean for the future of Canada – EU relations?
A blog by Robin Haug, with special thanks to Bennet Nicolaisen
In April, Mark Carney was elected Canada’s new prime minister. The 60-year old, who became a household name as governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, not as a professional politician, secured his Liberal Party an unexpected success. With 8.5 million votes, representing a voting turnout of close to 44 percentage points, the Liberal Party was able to win 169 seats in the Canadian parliament and become the strongest faction once again. Only three seats were missing for a Liberal parliamentary majority for the upcoming legislative period. Canada’s electoral system follows a simple “first past the post” majority system, comparable to elections for the United Kingdom’s House of Commons.
The big losers of Canada’s election were the Conservatives with their candidate Pierre Poilievre. Even though they were able to improve their vote share by around seven percentage points this time, they lost a comfortable lead in the polls in the final weeks of the electoral race. Between January 6th and March 21st, the Conservative Party lost a lead of 24 percentage points against the Liberal Party. A key role in the comeback of the Liberal Party played former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by resigning as the party’s leader and as Prime Minister on January 7th. He cleared the path for a new frontrunner after declaring that he didn’t feel to be the best option for his party if he needed to fight internal battles. Since Canadians felt like Trudeau’s time as the country’s leader had passed, his withdrawal opened the possibility of a political comeback for the Liberals. Mark Carney was able to win the race for party leadership, which automatically made him Canada’s interim Prime Minister. Given his popularity among Canadian voters – strongly outweighing those of his major opponent Poilievre – the ground for the Liberal Party comeback was successfully laid down.
On the competitor’s side of the campaign trail, Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party might have felt too safe and already imagined themselves back in power. But the campaign struggled heavily in the final weeks of the campaign. Their anti-Trudeau campaign strategy appeared obsolete when Trudeau resigned. This left Poilievre and his Conservatives with a major lack of strategy in the crunch time of the election. The party wasn’t able to find a new core theme for its campaign and the idea to frame Carney as Trudeau in disguise didn’t catch on. Instead, Poilievre struggled with an image problem at the end of his campaign. The 45-year old career politician made himself a name as a core conservative, even resonating with far-right movements on anti-lockdown, against woke ideas and defaming his political opponents. With that type of political style, it isn’t much of a surprise that Poilievre won a foreign endorsement from Elon Musk. In the end, Poilievre actually lost his seat in the Canadian House of Commons in this election and is now confronted with the challenge of leading the Conservative party and being the opposition leader without any parliamentary role.
But returning to the final weeks of the elections, there was a much bigger elephant in the room – or better to say at the southern border. US-president Trump played a significant role in the outcome of Canada’s election as he proactively intensified tensions with America’s closest ally. For one, Trump advanced his protectionist foreign economic agenda by imposing tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China just a few days after his inauguration. Despite his back and forth by at first putting tariffs on hold, then reinstating them to just putting them on pause again, he subsequently escalated the conflict further by bringing forth his idea of Canada becoming the 51st state of the US. This set an unexpected major election topic for Canadians: the future of US-Canada relations and the country’s independence. The public opinion clearly shifted into a confrontational discourse against President Trump and his administration with Canadians boycotting US-products and booing the US national anthem at sports events. That shifted public opinion further leveraged the incumbent Liberals and their leader, Mark Carney, in their comeback efforts. Despite both major candidates, Carney and Poilievre, strongly pushed back against Trump’s annexation idea, the Liberals were able to elevate themselves as the more trustworthy defender of Canada’s sovereignty. Polls further suggested that Liberal party voters were much more clear in their rejection of Canada becoming the 51st state of the US than Conservative party voters, presenting the Liberal party a great late-election mobilization theme for their voting basis.
Ironically, President Trump even reconnected Canadians with the British monarchy. Almost 50 years after the last royal address to the Canadian parliament, King Charles III. as Canada’s head of state, delivered his address to begin the new legislative session by acknowledging the unprecedented challenges Canada faces right now. Furthermore, only a minority of Canadians currently want to end formal ties with the British monarchy – in comparison to 2023 when a majority actually wanted to end ties.
As ironic as that might be, this process symbolizes a great opportunity for Canada and Europe. As the United States is willingly giving up its status as the leading reliable partner of Western society, Europe and Canada find themselves at the same corner. Both need to find new trustworthy partners, especially when it comes to economic and military cooperation, both need to make themselves more independent from the US and both stumble upon the challenge to uphold Western liberal ideas such as the multilateral international system and democratic values. It is therefore imperative for both Canada and Europe to build upon existing structures, e.g., NATO as the common security architecture system or a further development of the free trade agreement CETA.
Before his election victory, Mark Carney even signaled that he sees the future of Canadian foreign policy much more strongly tied to the European Union and Great Britain. His first foreign visit as interim Prime Minister was to Paris and London as opposed to Washington D.C. He also established first ties with the new German chancellor Friedrich Merz during the inaugural ceremony of Pope Leo XIV. Since Canada currently holds the G7 presidency, chances are good to see a pro-transatlantic agenda-setting in the upcoming years of Mark Carney’s term as Canada’s newly elected Prime Minister.
Robin Haug has been a member of Polis180 since 2021. He currently is the head of the regional program The America(n)s and was elected in March 2024. Robin studied Political Science with a focus on International and European politics and concentrated his research and studies on the United States of America and the transatlantic partnership from early on. Furthermore, he works for the Social Democratic Party Germany in the federal state of Hesse as a political organizer and consultant for political campaigns and events.
Image via Unsplash
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