It was truly a return from the dead. The Liberal Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Mark Carney, won the Canadian parliamentary election. At the start of this year, such a thing seemed impossible. Back then, polling data showed the Liberals — the party of Justin Trudeau, in office as prime minister since 2015 — in second place, trailing the Conservatives by a massive 20 percentage points, and only marginally in front of the left-wing, social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP). But in the course of just a few months, everything has changed. How did that happen?
Stefan Liebich directs the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s New York Office.
Commentators essentially agree that the Liberal comeback had two main causes: Carney replacing Trudeau as prime minister and the inauguration of Donald Trump. But let’s start by taking a closer look at the election results.
The Liberal Party received 43.7 percent of the vote, enjoying an 11-point swing in its favour compared to the parliamentary elections of four years earlier. Having captured 169 of 343 seats in the House of Commons, the party fell only marginally short of an absolute majority.
The Conservative Party also performed better than in 2021, gaining 7.6 points to secure 41.3 percent of the vote and 144 seats.
The election’s major loser was the left-wing NDP, which lost almost two-thirds of its support. Having achieved 17.8 percent of the vote in 2021, it received only a disappointing 6.3 percent this time around, with just seven seats in the lower house. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh announced his resignation on election night.
The right-wing populist People’s Party also suffered bitter losses, obtaining a mere 0.7 percent after garnering 4.9 percent in 2021. There were also swings against both the Bloc Québécois (down 1.1 percent to 6.3 percent), which only fielded candidates in the French-speaking province, and the Green Party (down one percent to 1.3). Nonetheless, the Bloc Québécois and the Greens have retained a presence in the lower house with 22 seats and one seat respectively.
From Trudeau to Carney
The weeks leading up to the vote were tumultuous. Until 20 January this year, the election looked like a foregone conclusion. Disappointment with the political performance of long-time prime minister Justin Trudeau, who had broken numerous promises, was too deep. In particular, he had failed to curb growing social inequality and meet ecological challenges.
The Trudeau government had cut taxes for the rich and poured billions into supporting new oil and gas extraction projects. Canadians particularly blamed Trudeau for the fact that there is less and less affordable housing in Canada — especially in the cities. His policy of attracting people from abroad to work in Canada’s low-wage sector was also unpopular.
The change of party and government leadership was a precondition of the Liberals’ recovery. And yet the Conservative Party may well have won in a landslide had Donald Trump not returned to the White House on 20 January.
As a result of these policies, the country saw an enormous rise in social inequality and Trudeau’s approval rating nose-dived. Following the resignation of his deputy, finance minister Chrystia Freeland, and a revolt among MPs in his own party, Trudeau ultimately resigned as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party in early January.
Mark Carney then emerged victorious from the party’s leadership contest. The former governor of the Bank of Canada and later head of the Bank of England became Trudeau’s successor in March. Immediately after becoming prime minister, he called an early parliamentary election, which was formally confirmed by Governor General Mary Simon in the name of British King Charles III, who is also Canada’s head of state.
Trump: Unwitting Electoral Ally
The change of party and government leadership was a precondition of the Liberals’ recovery. And yet the Conservative Party may well have won in a landslide had Donald Trump not returned to the White House on 20 January. On the day of Trump’s inauguration, the climate of political feeling in Canada began to undergo an unprecedented transformation.
The turnaround was prompted by US President Trump’s extraordinary attacks on the economy and sovereignty of the United States’ northern neighbour. Trump has made no secret of his desire to annex Canada and turn it into his country’s 51st state. If this statements were initially greeted in a spirit of mirth, it rapidly became clear that Trump was completely sincere in his intent. From that point on, Canadian political and media circles began to view the US president’s threats as representing a serious existential risk.
The reasons are obvious. Both countries have been steadfast allies for years; their economies are closely intertwined. Countless numbers of people and goods cross the almost 9000-kilometre-long border every day. More than 30 high-voltage transmission lines connect the two countries, with Canada supplying millions of US households with electricity. The car industry in Detroit is also largely served by Canadian suppliers. This economic cooperation is secured by the United States–Mexico–Canada free trade agreement — negotiated by Trump himself in 2018.
Economic interdependence is supplemented by close political and military ties. In the past, conflicts between the two countries have always been resolved via diplomatic channels.
But no longer. Having merely imposed tariffs on imports of Canadian steel and aluminium in his first term, Trump is now winding up for the knockout punch. His aim is to force the annexation of Canada primarily through economic pressure. The focus lies on tariff policy, which, given Canada’s high degree of economic integration with its southern neighbour, may well prove very painful. Trump’s tariff policy is erratic, but has already had serious real-world consequences.
Immediately following his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order imposing a sweeping 25-percent tariff on nearly all goods imported from Canada. He justified this move with reference to drug smuggling, illegal migration, and the claim that the US was “subsidizing” Canada at a rate of US$200 billion a year. All three allegations, however, are demonstrably incorrect. According to the latest data, only a tiny fraction (0.2 percent) of the fentanyl consumed in the US is imported from Canada, and only 1.5 percent of the migrants stopped at US borders enter from the north. Finally, the supposed “subsidy” paid to Canada actually turns out to be the US trade deficit with Canada, and it amounts to just US$41 billion, not US$200 billion.
Two days later, Trump revoked the blanket tariff. A months-long back-and-forth ensued. Even though the trade in most goods is now tariff-free again, the 25 percent tariffs currently in place on steel and aluminium products and cars and car components continue to have massive effects on Canadians, who must now fear for their jobs.
Canadian Self-Assertiveness
The Canadian public was appalled by Trump’s tariff policy and his repeated threats to annex the second-largest country in the world. An unprecedented wave of patriotism swept the country, also providing impetus to a boycott of American goods. Surveys reveal that less than ten percent of the population wants Canada to become the 51st state of the US. That is barely more than in Greenland, which, notoriously, Trump also wants to incorporate into the US.
Presumably, many former NDP voters sought to use their vote to keep the Conservatives from leading the government.
This conflict with the country’s “bigger brother” has had huge effects on Canada’s political constellation. Its first victim was Pierre Poilievre, leader and prime-ministerial candidate for the Conservatives. In recent years, he had pushed the party markedly to the right. Thus, for instance, he supported the protests of truck drivers who blockaded the country’s capital, Ottawa, in January 2022, in opposition to the government’s Covid policy. Most notably, however, he had given Trump fans within the party a good deal of latitude. This association, which until the beginning of this year had seemed to benefit Poilievre, backfired once Trump took office.
By contrast, the new prime minister has been able to convince citizens than he is the right man to handle dealings with the US. Carney’s resolute discursive and practical rejection of Trump’s politics attracted voters to him in droves.
Victim of Polarization
If we compare polling data from January with the results of the election in April, however, there is one more factor that jumps out. For even if the Liberals performed more strongly while the Conservatives had a weaker showing at the election than the January polls had been predicting, both major parties ultimately made huge gains in terms of their overall share of the vote. This is first and foremost a result of the fact that Trump’s political interventions have also intensified political polarization in Canada. The question of which of the two leading candidates was more suited to leading the country through the crisis increasingly became the focus of debate. This in turn proved to be to the detriment of smaller parties, whose shares of the vote declined across the board. And since Canada has a first-past-the-post electoral system, this meant that they also lost large numbers of seats. It remains to be seen whether this trend will continue into the future, leading the country further in the direction of a two-party system.
Within this political climate, the Conservatives have been able to attract most of the voters of the far-right People’s Party, while the 11.1 percent swing toward the Liberals roughly corresponds to the 11.6 percent swing away from the NDP. Presumably, many former NDP voters sought to use their vote to keep the Conservatives from leading the government.
There is also a further factor at play: under Singh’s leadership, the NDP signed an agreement following the last election in which it promised to lend its support to a Liberal minority government should the latter face a vote of no-confidence. In return, the party was promised the implementation of many of its demands — most notably the expansion of public healthcare, the strengthening of trade union rights, and paid sick leave. Presumably, it was punished at this election for helping to keep Trudeau in office at a time when he had become unpopular, even though the agreement was terminated in September 2024. In any case, the NDP, which has close ties to the union movement and plays an important role in a number of provinces, has been substantially weakened for the time being. Given that it continues to have maintain strong social ties within local communities, however, it certainly has the potential — much like Die Linke once did — for a comeback.
This article first appeared in nd.Aktuell in collaboration with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Translated by Marc Hiatt and Ryan Eyers for Gegensatz Translation Collective.