The Liberal leadership race is effectively over and the 2025 Canadian general election just got a lot more interesting.
As with swallows and summers, one poll does not define any political contest.
But any Liberals who decide to vote for anyone other than Mark Carney after Leger’s latest survey might as well form a circular firing squad.
The poll suggested that the Conservative lead across the country has been whittled down to nine points from 18 points during the firm’s last survey.
Leger has Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives at 40 per cent support, compared to 31 per cent for the Liberals.
However, Liberal support rises to 37 per cent when respondents were asked to consider Carney as leader, while the number of Conservative voters slips into a statistical dead heat. (Given the inefficiency of a Conservative vote heavily concentrated in the West, that would likely see the Liberals re-elected.)
The bad news for Chrystia Freeland’s leadership campaign is that with her as leader, Liberal support declines to 28 per cent and the Conservatives maintain a strong lead at 38 per cent.
Liberal party members would have to be pretty dumb to ignore such obvious signals from the electorate, and when it comes to holding on to power, Liberals are not dumb.
As mentioned, this is just one poll but the trendlines are supported by others.
It is an exceptional turnaround in public sentiment, but we are living in a singular moment.
When Justin Trudeau resigned just last month, most polling firms had the Conservatives ahead by more than 20 percentage points.
Yet, Poilievre’s lead has always been predicated on deep enmity towards Trudeau, rather than an affection for the Conservative leader. Abacus Data polls consistently revealed that around one-third of those who said they supported Poilievre were parking their vote and could be persuaded to change their minds if a better alternative came along. For many of those people, Carney seems like the right person at the right time.
The Leger poll suggests that eight out of 10 Canadians are concerned President Donald Trump will use tariffs to pressure Canada into a closer union with the U.S.
Poilievre’s “axe the tax” mantra resonates less loudly against the backdrop of potential annexation.
The only way out of this mess is to choose a national leader who is resolute in defence of Canada, who is prepared to safeguard its economy and who is willing to use its natural resources to benefit all Canadians
The Conservative leader and Carney are in a statistical tie when it comes to being trusted to deal with Trump. But Carney has a clear advantage when it comes to experience in major crises. (I disclose, as I have before, that I have been friends with Carney for more than a decade.)
The Conservatives have millions of dollars to paint the presumptive Liberal leader as “Carbon Tax Carney” or to denigrate his role as governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England.
But the facts remain: Carney was in the Cash Room at the U.S. Treasury in October 2008 with the other G7 finance ministers and central bankers when the decision was taken to backstop the banking system with liquidity to prevent a repeat of the Great Depression.
He was chair of the Financial Stability Board, the international body that cleaned up the mess in the wake of the financial crisis.
And he was the governor of the Bank of England who warned that Brexit would weaken the pound, undermine investment, lead to higher unemployment and cripple economic growth. (A 2021 report by the U.K. Office of Budget Responsibility calculated that Brexit will cost Britain four per cent of GDP per annum going forward or $57 billion a year).
Against that, Poilievre’s resume is, let’s say, one-dimensional.
The Conservative leader also sounds almost Trumpian in his rhetoric, in a way that could harm his cause with potential switch voters. That’s not to suggest that he subscribes to Trump’s delusional mercantilism or casual corruption.
But in his Arctic security announcement this week, he talked of “dramatically cutting foreign aid.”
At a time when Trump is discarding allies, surely it would pay to do the opposite: to assert the value of soft power in the battle to win friends and influence people.
Poilievre’s sympathies are often too narrow for many voters who are not fully invested in his project.
How many people were cheering him on this week, when he tweeted out that Carney was wearing $2,000 Zegna sneakers during a photo op?
If there was ever a time to put away childish things, it is now.
At the same time, Carney has baggage — not least the Liberal brand. Poilievre had a point when he said that the team of Trudeau ministers who are now backing Carney not only endorsed his agenda, they helped write it, push it and implement it. “Keeping Trudeau’s team is the same as keeping Trudeau.”
The mere sight of Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault endorsing Carney was probably enough for many Poilievre waverers to stiffen their spines.
The sense that the Liberals need to be consigned to the penalty box remains strong and may be a decisive factor in the coming election.
Then there is Carney himself. His defining mission in recent years has been climate action and it was telling that his first policy commitment was a plan that would dump the consumer carbon tax he says is now too divisive and replace it with a new approach that relies on financial incentives for appliances, cars and insulation.
He would tighten existing output-based carbon regimes that regulate heavy emitters to avoid credit oversupply, though since those programs are run by the provinces it is not clear how he would do that. He would make investments in electrified transportation and develop a carbon-based adjustment mechanism — loosely, tariffs on countries that don’t take climate action, to avoid “carbon leakage.”
It is a fairly modest plan. But the fact that it was his first priority is the problem. He has been vague, for example, about whether he is in favour of building pipelines east and west to diversify the customer base for our energy.
Frankly, people have more immediate concerns, such as the president of the United States saying he wants to annex their country and plans to squeeze them economically until they submit to his will. If Trump follows through, as it appears he has every intention of doing, Canada’s emissions growth will cease to be a problem because there will be no growth of any kind.
The Leger poll suggests nearly nine in 10 Canadians are worried, if not stressed about it.
The only source of consolation is that a roughly equal number say they feel pride in being Canadian, a significant increase on the number who said the same the last time the question was asked nearly a year ago.
Carney has talked about us being masters in our own house; Poilievre has promised he will build a self-reliant, sovereign nation.
The only way out of this mess is to choose a national leader who is resolute in defence of Canada, who is prepared to safeguard its economy and who is willing to use its natural resources to benefit all Canadians.
The next election will be a contest to decide who is best positioned to do that job.
National Post
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