By Daniel Béland

January 23, 2025

On the first day of his second presidency, Canadians feared that Donald Trump would impose 25% tariffs on their country. This is why many of them were relieved when they noticed he did not mention Canada at all in his inauguration speech.

Canadians typically like it when U.S. presidents pay attention to them, but with President Trump, it is the opposite: considering what he’s said about Canada in the recent past, the less he mentions our country, the better. Unfortunately, during a press conference held in the Oval Office later on Inauguration Day, President Trump did repeat his tariff threat against both Canada and Mexico before stating “I think we’ll do it Feb. 1. On each.”

That may or may not prove to be the case, as Trump has also requested a study of the issue, scheduled to report back on April 1, which would seem like a more appropriate date to impose punitive tariffs on Canada, if this is what the president really wants to do.

For the two front-runners in the Liberal leadership race, Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland, Trump’s stalling has had two obvious effects: it has dominated the news cycle on both sides of the border, and it has provided an opportunity for differentiation in what Policy columnist Lori Turnbull has so deftly framed as “the search for Captain Canada”.

During her campaign launch in Toronto on Sunday, Freeland, who has a history with Trump from the CUSMA negotiations and proudly reminded Canadians in her launch video that “Donald Trump doesn’t like me”, was the first to threaten “dollar-for-dollar” retaliatory tariffs. On January 20, Inauguration Day, she reiterated that position, which Carney, like Ontario Premier Doug Ford, echoed.

For his part, Carney said the imposition of tariffs by the Trump administration would “demand the most serious trade response in our history” and that “Dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs by Canada should be a given and they should be aimed where their impacts in the United States will be felt the hardest”. Freeland, in a CP24 interview aired on the morning of the inauguration, stated that “We need to stand up to Donald Trump and I am the person who can do it”.

The above statements by Carney and Freeland point to the fact that Donald Trump has become a central character in the Liberal leadership race, and that Liberals expect and even hope that the next federal election is centred on how to stand up to for Canada against Trump rather than on things such as the housing crisis, immigration, and the carbon tax.

In fact, both Carney and Freeland have now distanced themselves from the federal carbon tax, a signature environmental policy of the Justin Trudeau era so pummelled by polling that even environment and climate change minister Steven Guilbeault, who is backing Carney, is now giving it a very wide berth.

At this writing, a newly published EKOS poll conducted between January 17-21, before and after Trump’s inauguration, show a surge in Liberal support back above 30% since September 2022, with 31.5% of decided and leaning voters to the Conservatives’ 38.5%, with the NDP at 14.2%.

Canadians typically like it when U.S. presidents pay attention to them, but with President Trump it is the opposite: considering what he’s said about Canada in the recent past, the less he mentions our country, the better.

While the poll should be read with all the usual qualifiers, EKOS President Frank Graves writes in his analysis that the Liberal surge is driven by three factors: Trudeau’s resignation; media coverage of the Liberal leadership race; and, “the cavalcade of radical announcements from the freshly inaugurated Donald Trump has spurred a renewed sense of national identity, prompting Canadians to rally around their incumbent leaders in a show of solidarity.”

Yet, Trump is not running for office here in Canada and the main electoral foe of the Liberals is Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. Long before Trump was re-elected in early November, Liberals compared him to Poilievre, partly because both employ similar populist tactics. Although these attacks proved ineffective at least as far as polling numbers are concerned, some comments by Carney and Freelend suggest that they both think Poilievre is vulnerable to the claim that, if he becomes prime minister, he will not be able to stand up to President Trump.

For instance, when he announced his leadership bid earlier this month, Carney stated that while he is “focused on building our economy,” Poilievre is “out chasing endorsements from Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” adding that “It’s not the time for lifelong politicians such as Pierre Poilievre”.

As for Freeland, also in the speech that kickstarted her Liberal leadership bid, she claimed that “The real problem with Pierre Poilievre is that he’s weak. He will never stand up to Donald Trump (…). If he’s elected he’ll be on the first flight to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring. He will bend down and sell us out.” Clearly, both Carney and Freeland refer to Trump and his entourage to draw a contrast between them and Poilievre. Their approach is in sync with the Liberal Party, which recently suggested on social media, quoting a tweet by Elon Musk praising the Conservative leader, that Poilievre might stand up for “American billionaires” rather than for ordinary Canadians.

Because Trump looms so large in Canadian politics right now, Poilievre seeks to project strength and drape himself in the Canadian flag while repeating the claim that, as prime minister, he would put “Canada First,” as he did during his January 9 press conference. In fact, on the day after President Trump’s inauguration, Poilievre issued a statement on social media in which, while criticizing the Liberals, he points to the need to consider “retaliatory tariffs” against the United States while putting Canada first.

Yet, for Poilievre, the second Trump presidency does pose a challenge, as Conservative supporters are much more likely than their Liberal or NDP counterparts to support Trump. More important, the fact that Alberta’s United Conservative Party Premier Danielle Smith has rejected the call for a unified “Team Canada” approach supported by Trudeau and the 12 other premiers while seeming reluctant to take on Trump publicly creates an award political situation for Poilievre, especially because his party has so many supporters in her province.

Prime Minister Trudeau is aware of this and he levied this attack against Poilievre a few days before Trump’s inauguration: “Either he stands up to fight for all Canadians alongside all premiers and the federal government that are doing that, or he chooses to stand with Danielle Smith, Kevin O’Leary, and ultimately, Donald Trump”.

It’s an attack likely to become recurrent in the ongoing Liberal leadership race, as Carney, Freelend, and other Liberals seek to depict Poilievre as “weak on Trump” to assert their own apparent capacity to stand up for Canada against the new Republican administration.

Daniel Béland is professor of political science and director (on leave) of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University.