By Lisa Van Dusen

February 17, 2025

With a pre-emptive disclaimer covering all the inbound exceptions that make the rule, most election campaigns are about two things: contrast and context.

And, while those defining elements sometimes exist relatively independently of each other, there are some campaigns, usually at key moments in history, in which they are impossible to unweave: The Mulroney-Turner election of 1988, in which the context of free trade amplified the character contrast that lost Turner their first contest four years earlier; the Obama-McCain election of 2008, in which the historic context of the promise of America’s first Black president was underscored by the generational contrast between the two candidates.

Two things happened in the closing weeks of 2024 to re-frame both the context and contrast elements of Canada’s looming 2025 election campaign. The first was the improbable return of the twice-impeached, felonious, exponentially disruptive presidency of Donald J. Trump to active status. The second was the withdrawal of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from Canada’s electoral battlefield.

In the opening weeks of 2025, the context and contrast throughlines of Canada’s pre-election narrative have crystallized to produce the following state of play as of this writing: The context is defined by the unprecedented status of the president of the United States as the antagonist against whom both the Conservative and Liberal candidates will be running in addition to each other; and, the contrast between those two candidates will be, as never before, utterly inseparable from that context.

Which leaves us — again, at this writing, per the cliché that a week is an eternity in politics as a proviso and based on the critical mass of polling and other signifiers of momentum — with the context of a Canadian election campaign now in pre-writ rehearsals offering the contrast of Pierre Poilievre vs. Mark Carney.

And with the asterisk that election outcomes in so many jurisdictions worldwide these days are limited in their shock value only by the vast possibilities of what can be rationalized by propaganda circuses and operational interference, that change has so altered Poilievre’s prospects and calculus as to have inspired what has been variously labelled a pivot, a rebrand and a re-launch from “Canada’s broken” to “Canada First”.

Meanwhile, Carney is emerging as not only the anti-Trump candidate but as the actual Antitrump. The former serial, transatlantic central bank governor would have been the most understated, hypercoherent Trump foil in this race even if he hadn’t spent seven years running the Oxbridge wonk-mecca of the Bank of England. As it is, he presents as the sane, unflappable, economic-policy fluent, worldly opposite of the combustible, relentlessly rampaging American president.

Carney’s contrast with Trump and Poilievre would be less meaningful if not for the context of an existential threat to Canada and the unprecedented stakes that come with it. Patriotism is good, paroxysm isn’t.

In other words, Carney is spectacularly, sublimely boring — in the most electable way possible. In so many other, previous or future contexts, what now serves as a contrast with both Poilievre’s populist-heckler persona — pivot or no pivot — and Trump’s relentless mendacity and fearmongering would not be an asset. If, for instance, Carney had run against Justin Trudeau for the Liberal leadership in the 2013 cycle instead of going to London, the contrast with Trudeau’s charisma and strength as a retail politician would have worked against him. Today, Carney’s reasonable, logical sangfroid translates as a sort of mesmerizing political Xanax amid the Trumpian deluge.

Carney’s CBC interview Sunday with the unflinching Rosemary Barton made news on a number of fronts, including his confirmation that Stephen Harper asked him to be finance minister in 2012 and his plan to deficit-finance an economic growth agenda. It was also a study in Antitrump contrast, establishing Carney as — disquisition vs. non-sequitur, rhetorical austerity vs. inflammatory hyperbole, clip for clip — both the stylistic and substantive antidote to Donald Trump, and a testament to the power of combined context and contrast as a force multiplier.

Indeed, Carney’s contrast with Trump and Poilievre would be less meaningful if not for the context of an existential threat to Canada and the unprecedented stakes that come with it. Patriotism is good, paroxysm isn’t. There are two debates upcoming — in French on February 24th and in English February 25th, both in Montreal — during which Carney will be contrasted neither with Trump nor with Poilievre but with four other Liberal candidates, including Chrystia Freeland. That will provide a broader window on Carney, and on where the race stands, with or without knockout punches.

But at a time when an American president regularly cites his own emotions to justify a whole range of otherwise ludicrous policy options that not only happen to degrade and discredit democracy, America and the existing world order, but also threaten Canada, Carney comes across as an emotional, psychological and policy grownup.

Policy Editor and Publisher Lisa Van Dusen has served as Washington bureau chief for Sun Media, international writer for Peter Jennings at ABC News, senior writer for Maclean’s and an editor at AP National in New York and UPI in Washington.