By Daniel Béland

February 20, 2025

Canada’s Conservatives are becoming increasingly nervous as recent polls suggest that the Liberals, due to a cascade of game-changing events, have significantly closed the polling gap between the two parties. Some data also shows that, under the hypothetical leadership of Mark Carney, the Liberals would tie the Conservatives in terms of popular vote.

Under normal conditions, considering that the Liberals have been in power for more than nine years and that Carney is a politically inexperienced technocrat, the Conservatives would be expected to sail toward victory as we quickly approach the next federal election. Yet, since Prime Minister Trudeau announced his resignation less than six weeks ago, the advent of the second Trump administration and the various economic and territorial threats formulated against Canada by the incoming president have ignited Canadian patriotism while helping the Liberals, who have clearly benefited from the increasing tension between Canada and the United States.

The fact that the Liberals have benefited so directly from the current bilateral crisis is related to the awkward position in which it initially put Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. While Poilievre had long wanted to make the next federal campaign about carbon taxation and cost-of-living issues under the pithy applause line of “axe the tax”, Trump’s threats forced him and his party to gradually shift the focus of Conservative discourse toward patriotism and strong opposition to the new White House’s shockingly autocratic tariff and foreign policy agenda.

Yet, perhaps because many members of the Conservative base initially supported Trump for being on their end of the ideological spectrum, it took a while for Poilievre to shift his rhetoric towards a focus on protecting Canada’s economy and sovereignty. At the same time, he has not adopted the same bold anti-Trump stance of his Liberal opponents, squeezed as he is between not veering too far from the attack-dog persona that got him this far and alienating pro-Trump Conservative supporters who could defect to the People’s Party of Canada, which currently gathers a majority of pro-Trump voters.

While Poilievre’s Flag Day speech was clearly in synch with today’s patriotic Zeitgeist, in a series of online ads and social media posts, the Liberals have scored points against the Conservative leader by weaponizing some of his past remarks about Trump and about the state of Canada while stressing the similarities between his rhetoric and Trump’s. For instance, in a video ad posted by the Liberals on social media, Poilievre is seen uttering variations on the theme “Canada is broken” before being interrupted by the following written motto: “Wrong Choice. Wrong Time.” One does not need to be a political scientist to understand that “wrong time” here implicitly refers to the second Trump presidency.

In another online ad, which only lasts nine seconds, Poilievre is simply heard saying “It’s not the Americans’ fault. It’s our fault. We’re stupid.” Taken out of context, this quote seemed so damning to the Liberals that they did not add any commentary at the end of the ad, leaving members of the public to draw their own conclusions.

Another tactic used by the Liberals in one of their online ads is the juxtaposition of similarly-sounding Trump and Poilievre quotes that draws an apparent parallel between the two leaders. Because Trump has become so unpopular in Canada, simply pointing to broad similarities between his rhetoric and Poilievre’s is understood by Liberals as a strong condemnation of the Conservative leader.

The fact that the Liberals have benefited so directly from the current bilateral crisis is related to the awkward position in which it initially put Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

Liberal leadership hopeful Chrystia Freeland has echoed her party’s recent Trump-related attacks on Poilievre. For instance, in the excerpt of a televised interview posted by her team on social media, Freeland states that “Pierre Poilievre is not the guy who can do it. He is maple syrup MAGA. All he wants to do is imitate Trump.”

Interestingly, apart from reposting a Liberal anti-Poilievre ad on social media, Carney has not focused his campaign on attacking the Conservative leader, even if he has clearly called into question the latter’s fitness for the job of prime minister. Because he is clearly ahead in the polls and is now extremely likely to become the next Liberal leader and prime minister, however, Carney has become a key target for the Conservatives, who have, since the beginning of the Liberal leadership race, called him “carbon tax Carney” in an apparent effort to keep some memory of “axe the tax” alive while arguing that he is “just like Justin” Trudeau.

Yet, such nicknames and, more generally, attempts to closely tie Carney to an unpopular outgoing prime minister and his policies have not prevented the top Liberal leadership contender from surging in the polls and to pose a seemingly massive electoral threat to the Conservatives in the context of the second Trump administration. This is reflected by the fact that, according to recent polling data, Carney’s favourability is much higher than Poilievre’s.

In addition to pivoting their rhetoric to national pride and the protection of Canada’s economy and sovereignty, Conservatives are trying to find more effective ways to attack Carney, beyond or at least alongside the use of silly nicknames. This more systematic attempt to take on Carney is clearly at hand in a recent online Conservative attack ad that depicts him as someone who would help President Trump steal Canadian jobs because “Trudeau and Carney sold out Canada with taxes that pushed jobs South.” The ad also accuses Carney of moving “his company’s headquarters to New York” and of opposing “Canadian pipelines while profiting off U.S. coal.”  The ad concludes with the following slogan: “CARBON TAX CARNEY: If Carney Wins, Canada Loses”.

This ad is a clear attempt to mesh existing Conservative talking points about Carney and the Liberals while injecting strong pro-Canada rhetoric adapted to the new context created by Trump’s attacks. The new narrative that this ad tries to articulate is that Carney does not have Canada’s back and that his policies would weaken the country at a time when it needs to win.

Unfortunately for the Conservatives, this rather gloomy ad pales in comparison to much older Conservative ads that successfully targeted Liberal leaders Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff. These ads had a clearer message, they often displayed humour and a strong sense of derision, and they lacked childish nicknames.

But it’s harder to paint a former governor of the Bank of Canada, who’s been courted for the role of finance minister by both major parties, as either a tourist or a gamble.

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